


Every Stitch

by Cowboy_Sneep_Dip



Series: A Stare Like Yours [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Disability, F/F, Family Bonding, Fluff, Hi I'm mel and I write esoteric lucisev content, Horseback Riding, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recovery, Self-improvement as means of recovery or something, Underage Smoking, i really shoulda clarified this first, or; Say'ri makes Severa build a deck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2019-09-20 00:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17011830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/pseuds/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip
Summary: A sequel to Brace and Break; a story about an ex-delinquent who cries too much, and Cool Moms™, and the weird space that occupies the window between high school and college, and maybe some horseback riding and late-night kisses in the hayloft and snow on barren fields by the grey light of morning.





	1. Autumn I

**Author's Note:**

> I'm...genuinely unsure what to make of this one. Esoteric Lucisev fics indeed. (Sorry Lucina isn't actually here till chapter 2)

It’s a cold morning, maybe a little too cold for the time of year. The wind taps against the shutters, the morning light just barely cresting the horizon and painting a thin orange line across the edge of a small farmhouse. It’s a quiet morning, peaceful given the early hour. It’s too secluded for traffic from the highway, for the early morning commuters and the rattle of trucks rolling through the countryside. Here, it’s near-silent. Too early for even the birds.

But not too early for the cry of an alarm clock. The sound cuts through the morning air of a small bedroom, the loud beeping calling to wake the occupant within. It’s a terrible noise, a repetitive groaning, a buzzer that stirs the lump of blanket in the bed beside it. A hand sticks out of the blanket and swats wildly, missing the first strike and sending a phone clattering to the carpeted floor. Another swipe hits, and the alarm shuts off.

Silence, again.

An indeterminate amount of time passes before another sound lifts from the room. A grumble and a moan, brought to life by a gentle hand pressed against the blanket, and a shake.

“Come on, Severa. Up and at ‘em.”

Severa stirs, pushing herself slowly out of bed. She yawns and presses a palm into her eyes, the other bracing her as she sits up. “W-?” she mumbles, still half-asleep. A black cloth wrist brace is wrapped around her right hand, which she lifts too, to rub her other eye. “Mmm,” she yawns and lays back down.

“No, no. None of that, missy.” The gentle hand wraps around her shoulder and shakes her. “Come on, it’s 5:30. You need to feed the horses before the bus comes.”

“Mmn…” Severa groans, this time with disdain. “Can’t Cynthia?”

“Cynthia isn’t here anymore, remember? It’s your responsibility now.”

“Sumiaaaaaaaaa,” Severa sits up again, blinking blearily. “It’s so early…”

“Uh-huh. You’d better get used to it.” Sumia stopped at the door. “Breakfast’s on the stove, and there’s a pot of coffee ready. Okay?”

Severa sits up and swings her feet over the side of the bed. “Yeah, yeah. Be right down.”

“That’s my girl,” Sumia says, smiling before disappearing into the hallway.

Severa yawns and pushes herself to her feet. She pads over to the dresser and changes, exchanging her nightshirt and silk shorts for a pair of jeans and a tank top. She presses her hand against the windowpane, checking the temperature, and opts for an unbuttoned flannel shirt. She closes her eyes and rests for a moment against her dresser, taking deep breaths.

Exhaustion runs deep through her veins, her movements sluggish as she tries dressing. Her wrist brace catches on her sleeve and for a moment she winces, hissing through her teeth. The bedroom is a little cramped, with a two beds, two dressers, and a single shared vanity, covered from top to bottom with evidence of Severa’s life. A photo taped to the mirror, a bright smile and a flashed peace sign, with a scribbled heart over the photo paper. Severa pauses to look at it as she brushes her hair, calming the tangles of wild red. She ties it up into a single loose ponytail.

She checks her phone, staring at the white pixels blinking at her.

5:34.

 

 

“Mornin’, Say’ri,” Severa yawns, still bleary-eyed as she stumbles into the kitchen, careful not to slip on the tile floor. Sumia is at the stove, lording over a pan. She grits her teeth and digs a spatula under a piece of meat sticking to the bottom of the pan. She grunts at it, hoping her motivation is enough to pry it loose.

“Careful, dear,” says the woman at the table. She’s sipping a mug of black coffee and watching her wife cook. She turns as Severa enters. “Good morning, Severa.”

“C-Coffee?” Sumia asks, still struggling with breakfast. She presses the spatula again and chips off a piece of meat.

Severa nods and stops at the coffeemaker to fill a thermos she pulls from the cupboard. It’s a cozy, homey kitchen, just the right size to fit a breakfast nook and a row of cupboards. Say’ri is on her phone, no doubt already reading emails.

Severa sips from her thermos, adds creamer, sips, adds more. She pulls on her muddy boots before heading out the door.

She continues drinking, trying to consume as much caffeine as she can as she walks out the back door, crosses the porch, and sets off across the yard for the barn. It’s a cold morning, and fog has settled over the fields, still a hazy dark cloud before the first rays of sunlight begin to pierce through them. She checks her phone with her free hand, her thumb hovering over a name.

__Is it too early to text her? She’s probably still asleep, right?_ _

She unlocks the barn door and wrinkles her nose, immediately greeted by the overwhelming smell of __horse__.

It’s not that Severa disliked horses. She was fairly neutral on them, all things considered, but she despised waking up early, and it was for these stupid beasts that she was doing it, so she looked with disdain at the first stall.

“Good morning, __Abel__ ,” she glares. “Awake already?”

Abel snickers.

Severa sets her coffee thermos on a shelf and gets to work, moving through the stalls, filling troughs from a bag of horse feed. She isn’t as strong as Sumia, and her hand prevents her from lifting the heavy feed bags, but they separated the feed into smaller containers for her to manage more easily. Abel is fed first, and he headbutts her lightly as she shuffles past him.

She finishes feeding the horses and returns to her coffee for another drink before letting the horses out into the paddock. She sits on a crooked wooden fence, sipping her meager breakfast and watching the horses move out to pasture, illuminated by the glow of sunrise finally cresting the hills on the horizon. The fog dissipates slowly, lifting above the fields and revealing to the morning light the rolling hills, and the small white farmhouse, and the fenced-off paddock and the meadows bordered in trees already turning to the hues of autumn. She watches the horses roam and counts them.

__That fucker._ _

“Abel, you stupid bastard,” she growls, pushing the horse’s rear. “Move, you dumb horse!”

He whinnies and remains motionless.

“I hate you.”

He shakes his head.

“Come on, moron!” She shouts, shoving him. She takes a step forward and her boot skids across a patch of muddy hay, sending her sprawling on her rear.

“FUCK!” she cries, her angry voice finally enough to startle Abel to a trot out of his stall. She groans, lashing a leg out and kicking the wall, rattling the wood. It hurts, and she punches a bucket, and she cries out again and clutches her crippled wrist. “Stupid __fucking__  horse!” she groans, laying in the dirt and the hay, smelling like horse, wishing her morning was half as idyllic as it seemed to be. She pushes herself to a sitting position and rubs her temples.

“Stupid fucker,” she mutters, climbing to her feet. She finishes guiding Abel to the paddock and locks the gate, tracking mud across the porch as she returns to the kitchen.

She’s still muttering about horses as she pulls her muddy boots off and leaves them by the door before she stomps back into the kitchen.

“Are you alright?” Sumia asks, immediately spying Severa’s sour glare.

“Abel’s being a bastard,” Severa sits down heavily at the breakfast table, slumping over and resting her head in her arms. “Wake me up when the bus comes.”

“Language,” Sumia chides her gently, sliding a plate across the table and nudging Severa’s arm with it. “Come on, eat up.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, you need to eat to take your pills.”

Severa grumbles and sits up, swiping for a fork. She looks up, speaking with a mouthful of eggs. “Say’ri leave already?”

Sumia nods, pouring a glass of orange juice and sliding it across the table, alongside a pillbox. “She’s got a meeting this morning and wanted to be in early to prepare.”

Severa finishes scarfing her breakfast and hurries to take a shower, finally realizing that her desire to sleep in has left her with an alarmingly short time to shower, do her hair, do her makeup, and get ready for the school day. She begrudgingly uses the communal hair dryer - her other option is going to school with mud-splattered twintails.

She throws on a proper outfit for the day - black high-waisted shorts and a tank top, proper attire for a school that never seemed to be the right goddamned temperature. And she rifles through her desk, trying to collect the disparate papers that hopefully constitute completed homework. There’s an essay in there somewhere - her advanced placement literature class had assigned __summer homework__ , of all goddamn things, and she had a book report due. It’s the first week of school, and already she has worksheets and all that bullshit.

“Severa, bus is coming!” a voice echoes up the stairs.

She crams all of the papers on the desk into her backpack and slings it over her shoulder before rushing down the stairs, two at a time. “Shit,” she mutters under her breath, checking the time. “Sumia, why didn’t you __tell__ me?!”

“Hey,” Sumia catches her shoulder as she bolts for the front door.

Severa pauses, her manic sprint halted by a redirection into a firm hug. Sumia wraps her arms around Severa and squeezes. “Have a great day, honey. I love you.”

Severa mumbles something vague in response, trying in vain to pull herself out of Sumia’s grip.

Sumia lets her pull away.

“Um…” Severa searches the floor, desperately looking for anything but Sumia’s eyes. “Uh…” She purses her lips. “I’m…I’m sorry.” She looks up. “For…for the things I said yesterday. I…I didn’t mean any of that. You know I didn’t.”

Sumia smiles softly. “I know.” She pulls Severa into another hug and presses a kiss to her brow. “It’s okay, Severa. Nothing to forgive.”

“T-thank you,” Severa whispers under her breath. She turns slowly before heading out, slamming the screen door as she heading for the bus.

 

-

 

“Is this seat open?” Severa asks. She balances her lunch tray delicately on her bad wrist, the items on her tray meticulously arranged for even weight distribution to minimize impact.

Morgan looks up at her, surprised. “Oh. Uh…are you sure you want to sit here?”

Severa shrugs.

“I mean…sure, it’s open, but…it’s gonna be all my annoying friends. You’re gonna hate it.”

Severa sits heavily at his side and reaches for her milk carton. She has no desire to sit with her girlfriend’s little brother, sure, but her therapist had expressly forbade her from sitting by herself at lunch. She had tried sitting with some of the girls from the track team previously, but they had already sorted themselves into little circles and to Severa it was like sitting outside the glass of an aquarium - a world to gaze at but never be apart of. She almost wished she had bothered talking to members of the team other than Lucina and Cynthia. Almost.

Nah was the first to arrive, a sprightly young girl with two long strands of braided hair. She and Severa had never spoken before, and Severa only knew her name because Morgan greeted her as she sat. Lucina had mentioned the two might have crushes on each other, but it was all moot to Severa. She picks at her wrist brace and contemplates her sandwich.

For a moment she considers checking her phone, seeing if Lucina has messaged her.

She hates school. For one single, glorious year she had almost enjoyed it - she shared classes with Lucina, she ran on the track team, she had friends. She did her homework almost half the time! A record for her. She and Lucina would sit together, staying up late at night, poring over textbooks and running through practice problems and worksheets. It was a mutually beneficial relationship - Lucina had been terrible at math, so terrible that she __deserved__  her placement in the remedial math class Severa had wound up in through lack of effort. Severa wasn’t a dumb girl, her own thoughts on the matter be damned, but she needed focus, she needed discipline. Lucina had spent years honing the exact same skills.

Even so, Severa struggled. Her injured wrist made writing difficult, and she was slow to learn and easily frustrated. She was prone to outbursts in class, particularly when she was frustrated, and had been sent to the counselor’s office and detention more times than she could count. But she hadn’t been fighting as much - Lucina’s influence had helped in that regard. She still dealt with bullies, but her unspoken promise with Lucina was to not fight at all during her last year of high school. Lucina had promised her a fancy date night in the city for every month she could go without winding up battered and bruised in the nurse’s office.

Unfortunately, for less savory elements of the student body, that meant word got around that she was an easy target.

She winces and darts a hand to the back of her head, muttering. She looks around her desk, looking for whatever projectile had been flung at her. It was just a rubber band. She picks it up and looks around behind her, scanning the back of the classroom. Rows of students, heads down, pencils slowly scratching away at exam papers. She scowls.

“Miss Tiamo, eyes on your own paper,” comes a chastising voice from the front of the room.

Severa growls and turned back to her exam. She was unfortunately right-handed, meaning she had to devise a way to write that involved putting less pressure on her wrist. She can only write in short bursts, and even then her handwriting is messy and imprecise. If she’s hurrying, or in pain, her words become illegible. She keeps her head down, trying to focus on her answers.

Something hits the back of her head with a sharp sting and she lets out a pained hiss. She tries to ignore it.

__Don’t react. That’s what they want. Don’t react. Just be calm._ _

A third hit and she whips around, trying to catch the culprit.

“Miss Tiamo…” the teacher’s voice calls again.

Face burning with embarrassment and frustration, she turns back to her paper. Her hand trembles, her writing growing scratchy. She blinks back tears and holds her breath. Her focus breaks, her words lost in a swirl of anger and loathing. __Stupid fucking idiots. Stupid jerks. Can’t even leave me alone for half a fucking hour. Not that it matters, you’re going to fail anyway. Idiot.__ She whimpers and blinks, realizing tears are smudging her scribbled words. She drops her pencil and presses her hand against her mouth, hoping to stifle her tears.

The bell rings, and she breathes a sigh of relief as the other students get up and begin shuffling towards the front of the room, exams in their hands. She sits, head down, still writing as the rest of the class filters out of the room.

“Miss Tiamo?” comes a voice from the front of the room. “Time is up. You need to turn in your exam.”

Severa looks up and frowns. “Mr. Merric always gave me extra time on my tests.”

“Well, that may have been the case last year, but I’m not Mr. Merric. Turn in your exam.”

Severa furrows her brow and holds up her hand, her wrist brace in full view. “I have a disability slip in the office if you don’t believe me.”

“Perhaps if you had spent the period working rather than looking at other students’ papers, you would have been able to finish in the allotted time.” The teacher stands up from her desk and crosses the rows of student desks.

Severa defensively pulls her paper back. “T-that’s not fair.”

The teacher bends over and holds her hand out expectantly. “Your exam. Or will I need to take off points for turning it in late?”

“Fine.” Severa snarls, tossing the paper towards her teacher with disdain. “It’s not like I was going to finish it anyway.” She gathers up her things and heads for the door.

“Don’t think I haven’t heard the stories about you, Miss Tiamo.”

Severa flashes her a middle finger as she exits.

 

-

 

A knock at the door breaks Say’ri’s concentration and she looks up, her drill whirring down. She wipes a film of sawdust off the board in her hands, sets it against her workbench, and lifts her safety goggles to her brow. “Aye?” she calls.

The door to the workshop cracks open and two sprightly eyes peer through. “Hey! Just me.”

“Ah, greetings, dove. Come in, come in,” Say’ri ushers her in, tugging her work gloves off.

“How’s it going?” Sumia asks, sidling through the door and shutting it behind her.

The workshop is brightly lit, a skylight letting in shafts of sunlight, and Say’ri’s workbench is lit with fluorescent lamps. She’s hunched over the bench, a few disparate pieces of wood scattered around. “Fine,” Say’ri responds, wiping the sawdust from the bench. “I’ll need to make a trip to pick up some wood glue to finish this cross-joint, so let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

“Sure,” Sumia said, poring over the workbench with curiosity. She reaches for a loose bolt and Say’ri gently pushed her hand away.

“Careful, dove.”

Sumia offers a fake pout and Say’ri leans forward to press a kiss into her cheeks.

Say’ri’s workshop had been as Sumia-proofed as it possibly could be, but even the latches on the toolboxes full of bolts and nails and the locks on the power tool cabinet couldn’t prevent an accident from happening every here and there. When Cynthia had been born, Say’ri worked tirelessly to child-proof it as well, but a workshop was no place for a toddling child regardless of her grace. The safeguards she had put in place were, ironically, of great benefit to Sumia as well, and by the time Severa joined the family the last hospitalization had been three years prior. Say’ri just made sure to keep the sawblades in a separate lockbox now.

“Is something the matter? You look troubled.”

Sumia sighs sadly and sits against the workbench. “It’s…”

Say’ri joins her and rests a hand on Sumia’s, squeezing lightly. Sumia stares at the pile of unfinished lumber her wife had been working on and sighs again.

“Severa is hurting herself again.”

Say’ri nods and wraps an arm around Sumia.

“I…I found a bloody cloth in her trash can when I was cleaning her room.” Sumia continues, holding herself and resting a hand on Say’ri’s. “Has…has she said anything to you?”

Say’ri shakes her head.

“I know something is wrong, but she just clams up so tight.”

“Not unlike her mother,” Say’ri says, laying Sumia’s head against her shoulder.

“I just…I wish she would talk to us. I want to be there for her, but she’s…” Sumia can’t quite grasp the words, her emotions getting the better of her. She sniffles.

“She’s lonely,” Say’ri suggests.

“You think so?”

Say’ri nods. “Her friends have left for school. You’ll recall how much time she spent with Lucina. Even at home, she and Cynthia were oft together. She’s unused to the isolation.”

“Maybe…” Sumia slides off the table and stands. “Maybe you could get her to help you with something? You know she sometimes opens up to you a little more.”

Say’ri stands as well, humming thoughtfully. She looks across her workspace, surveying the loose boards and half-finished projects and buckets of wood stain. “The fence by the road needs mending. She could perhaps help with that.”

 

Severa is laying in bed when Say’ri knocks. She doesn’t respond. Say’ri enters and Severa shifts, rolling over to put her back to the door. She curls up tighter, tucking her face against her pillow. She’s laying on the bedspread, having not bothered to get under the covers. Her backpack and shoes sit by the door, untouched, likely left where they fell as she strolled through the door. Severa is awake, her eyes half-lidded with disinterest.

“Severa?”

Severa lays still, the only perceptible motion the slow rise and fall of her chest.

“May I come in?”

Severa rolls over. Her eyes look dark, weariness and irritation plain on her face. Her bangs hang in lopsided swoops, framing her face awkwardly and making her look more disheveled than she really is. “It’s your house.”

Say’ri sighs and sits on Cynthia’s bed, opposite of Severa. “It’s your space, Severa.”

Severa pushes herself to a sitting position and rolls her eyes. “What do you want, anyway?”

“I need to fix the fence by the road. Some of the boards are rotted and need to be replaced. Are you busy?”

Severa scowls and folds her arms over her chest. “Do I look busy?”

“Wonderful,” Say’ri smiles and gets to her feet. “I’ll get the lumber and tools out of the workshop and meet you on the front porch.” She walks out the door.

“H-hey!” Severa stammers after her. “I didn’t say yes!”

“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”

 

Severa grumbles loudly, making her feelings on the endeavor perfectly known as she and Say’ri carry their gear out towards the paddock. “Why do we have to walk?”

“A little exercise will do you good.”

Severa scowls and cradles a heavy metal toolbox under her arm, bracing it with her free hand. She feels a little silly, watching Say’ri haul her own pack of tools and several long wooden boards. They follow the paved driveway till it hits the fence, then take a dirt path that runs along it. Severa watches the horses graze as she does, trying not to think about the dull ache in her wrist. It’s a beautiful, breezy evening, the autumnal morning replaced with the warmth of a late-summer sunset. Severa’s flannel shirt it a little too warm, all things considered, but she tugs the cuffs of her sleeves down past her palms anyway. “Did you or Sumia ever fix the hinge on Isadora’s stall?” she asks at last, fed up with the silence between them.

“No, I’ll get to it tomorrow evening.”

“Okay.” They walk in silence for some time. Severa’s boots crunch on the hard-packed dirt. “Well, it got stuck again this afternoon. She almost trampled me.”

“Then I’ll take a look tonight.”

Severa lets out a huff. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Just up ahead,” Say’ri says, refusing to let Severa’s attitude get to her. “Right where the fence curves there, past that tree.”

Severa lets her toolbox flop to the dirt with a loud clatter.

“Careful,” Say’ri says, setting her own supplies down more gently. She gets to work immediately, using a crowbar to pry loose the old, rotten boards. She breaks one free and chips away the remaining chunks of decayed wood away. “Would you like to try?” she extends the crowbar to Severa.

It feels heavy in her hands, much heavier than she would have expected. Movies and television sure made them __seem__  a little easier to swing, and Severa cracked through a board with a half-hearted and wayward smash.

“No,” Say’ri said sternly. “Pry. Like this.” She gently took one of Severa’s arms and helped her jimmy the crow bar in the joint between two boards. “And…pull.” She instructed, lending her strength to Severa’s own. The board came loose in a single, clean break. “Wonderful.”

Severa nodded, trying not to let a prideful smile grace her sullen lips.

“Do you think you can get the rest? Just this section here, up to that next post.”

Severa nods and gets to work, doing her best to break loose old boards.

“You know, Sumia wants you to start riding.”

Severa says nothing. The next board comes loose but doesn’t break free, and it takes a second push to snap. Severa’s movements are clumsy, more vindictive than graceful, the jerky movements of someone trying to expend minimum effort on a task that requires coordination and strength. The iron of the crowbar chafes her palm and her wrist aches. “Yeah.” She says at last.

“Would you like to?” Say’ri kneels, organizing her bag of tools - a cordless drill, nuts, and bolts. She takes her first new board to the gap in the fence beside Severa.

“I guess.” Severa pries loose a third board, with some effort.

“Could you please help me for a moment?”

Severa lets the crowbar thump to the dirt, hoping her exhaustion looks like disinterest. Say’ri holds a board into position and lines up a guide screw. “Could you hold this board in place, please?”

Severa obeys, kneeling in the dirt next to Say’ri to keep the board propped up while Say’ri works. The scent of sawdust fills her nose, and the whirring of the power drill drowns out the soft breeze. Say’ri finishes, tests the board’s strength, and, satisfied, get to her feet and helps Severa up. “Would you like to get the last few boards?”

Severa picks up the crowbar again and jams the claw into a joint between a rotten board and a sturdy one. She goes to pull and her wrist twinges in pain. She cries out, half-breaking the clean board and dropping the iron bar to the ground with a dull thump and a puff of dirt. “Fuck!” she shouts, lashing a leg out at the fence. Her foot smashes through the rest of board with ease, splitting it in half, and she picks up the crowbar to break it further. She slams the bar against it like a blunt weapon. “Stupid fucking fence!”

Say’ri quickly drops her own task and hurries to Severa’s side, gently taking the crowbar from her hands.

“Don’t touch me!” she cries, shoving Say’ri back. “You stupid bitch, why’d you make me do this?! Now my fucking hand hurts, and I fucking broke it!” Her voice catches in her throat and she yells again, a vague cry of frustrated anger to accompany her profanity. She glares at Say’ri, her eyes fiery, her chest heaving with anger. “Fuck you, you __know__  I can’t do shit like this!” She screams and yells until her angry growl shifts to a whimper and she falters. “You…you…”

Her anger dissipates with nothing to bounce against. Say’ri waits patiently for her to finish, letting her burn out like a struck match.

“You…” Severa whimpers again. A cough is lodged in her throat. “I…I c-can’t…” She squeezes her eyes shut, and a tear tracks down her cheek. Her hands curl into weak fists. “I c…I can’t do anything…” she finally manages to gasp out.

Say’ri shifts closer, offering comfort for Severa to take. And she does, wrapping her arms around Say’ri and burying her face against her chest.

“I’m s-sorry,” she stammers quietly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m s-”

Say’ri gently strokes her hair.

 

 

Say’ri finishes the fence by herself, letting Severa sit and rest against a fencepost and watch. Say’ri speaks up from time to time, explaining her process, explaining what she’s doing and which tools do which thing. Severa nods politely but she refuses to make eye contact or respond. Her cheeks are flushed pink and she stares at a patch of weeds growing around the fencepost. She fishes a crumpled cigarette pack from her back pocket.

She often got like this after an outburst. She shifts to a state of embarrassment, shame at the things she said and did in the throes of her childish tantrum. She tugs her knees against her chest and rests her face against them, chewing on an unlit cigarette.

Say’ri finishes replacing the last board and applies pressure, testing it’s strength. Satisfied, she packs up her tools. The sun hangs low in the sky, a glowing orange haze above the horizon that casts streaks of light through the speckled late-evening clouds. Shafts of orange light burst through the clouds like jets of flame, and the wind ruffles Severa’s hair and dries her tear-stained cheeks.

Say’ri sits at her side. The two sit in silence by the side of the road, watching the sun and the shifting clouds. Severa lights her cigarette at last, her patience run dry. Say’ri speaks first, breaking the stillness. “Did something happen at school?”

Severa nods. “Just some kids being assholes.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“Not unless you count shooting paperclips at me in Valmese class.” She taps ashes out in the grass.

Say’ri was somewhat taken aback. “I didn’t know you were taking Valmese.”

“Well,” Severa picked at the grass around her with her free hand, focusing all of her attention on dissembling a clover leaf. “I had space in my schedule since I got held back. I needed three credits.”

Say’ri smiles and says something in a language Severa doesn’t understand.

Severa pouts. “It’s only been two days. We haven’t even started learning the alphabet yet.”

“It will come, with time.” Say’ri laughs. She wraps a comforting arm around Severa’s shoulder and squeezes. “I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah.”

Severa blinks slowly, for a moment considering closing her eyes, leaning into Say’ri’s embrace, returning the affection she’s given, but she remembers her cruel and hateful words and her face burns with embarrassment. __God__ , she’s such an asshole. How could she say those things? To a woman who took her in, who cares for her so deeply? Her breaths quicken and she squeezes her eyes shut. __Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.__

Say’ri rubs her shoulder. “Why were they picking on you?”

“Because they know I’m easy to provoke,” Severa snaps. She curses herself and takes a deep breath before taking a drag from her cigarette. “I just…I hate it. They do things to me, and I react without thinking. I can’t __help__  it. I just say stupid shit, and hit them back, and…” She digs her free fingers into the dirt and curls her hand into a fist. “I feel like I can’t control myself. No matter how hard I try. It’s like a switch is flipped, and I’m gone.”

Say’ri rubs her shoulder again, tugging her closer. The sun sinks lower, and a chill creeps through the air in the shadow of the hills. Say’ri waits before speaking, giving Severa a chance to continue.

Her hand shakes and the smoke from her cigarette shudders in uneven trails through the air. “I just…I get so angry. I know I shouldn’t, but I just…can’t…stop myself.” Her breaths quicken and she lifts her trembling hand to her mouth.

Say’ri rests her other hand on Severa’s knee and squeezes. “I understand.”

Severa manages to stop herself from snapping back with some insipid remark by taking sharp, choppy drags from her cigarette. Say’ri gently takes her hand.

“You know Sumia doesn’t like when you smoke.”

“Well, Sumia isn’t here.”

Say’ri sighs and gets to her feet, offering her hand to Severa and pulling her up beside her. “We should probably return, if I’m to look at Isadora’s stall.”

“N-no,” Severa says softly. “It’s not a big deal.”

They walk back in relative silence, and the sun sinks behind the hills, and the farmhouse lights turn on, bathing the street in dim, hazy lights. Even from the end of the paddock they can see through the open windows Sumia milling about, tidying up for dinner. Say’ri stops on the front porch.

“Severa…I would like to finish the back porch before the ground freezes over this winter. Would you like to help me?”

Severa folds her arms over her chest and tucks her face into her shoulder. “It’s not like I can do anything anyway.”

Say’ri sets her toolkit on the porch and gently grasps Severa’s shoulder. “It’s a very difficult job, and I need all the help I can get. Many hands make light work.”

Severa lifts her braced wrist. “Even just one?”

“That will do.” Say’ri nods. “I need to clean up, so please tell Sumia I will be in for dinner shortly.”

“Okay.”

“I love you,” Say’ri says, before saying something again in Valmese and pressing a kiss to Severa’s brow.

Severa frowns. She recognizes the phrase. “That’s what you call Sumia.”

Say’ri smiles again and gently pushes her towards the front door.


	2. Autumn II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY PROMISE I'M NOT DEAD
> 
> Have some Lucina

Lucina downshifts, grunting as her car hits a bump transferring from paved road to dirt path. The bump knocks loose her cassette deck and she smacks it, trying in vain to get the tape unstuck. “Stupid piece of junk,” she mutters. She passes by the mailbox at the end of the property and finds herself following a double-wide dirt road past acres and acres of farmland.

It’s a bright, sunny morning, the sky cloudless and clear. She has the windows down, and the breeze runs through her hair. It smells like livestock. She passes land that she knows pretty well - the meadows bordering the property, the fenced-in pastured filled with grazing horses and large rolls of hay. Then she passes the dirt riding track, a packed circle dotted with a few stray riders. On the weekends and by appointment, instructors and riders are allowed to use the track for lessons and events. A young girl rides past on a small brown mare and Lucina slows down, smiles, and waves.

She hits another pothole and the tape deck breaks loose of its mount and clatters to the passenger’s seat in a tangle mess of cords.

“Fuck!” she mutters, downshifting again and pulling to the side of the road. She reaches over to the now-smashed plastic tape and frowns.

A knock on the roof of her car startles her and she jumps.

“Good morning, Lucina.”

“Ah!” Lucina looks up. “M-Mrs. Fujiwara! Hello!” She sits up and leans against the window, letting her arm flop free. “Good morning. Working already?”

Say’ri raises an eyebrow and adjusts the collar of her denim jacket. “Already? It’s nearly noon.”

“Must be my college-student biorhythms,” Lucina grins. “Severa in?”

Say’ri nods and points towards the house, though her voice is a little low. “She wasn’t feeling well earlier, but you’re more than welcome to pay a visit. I know she would be glad to see you.”

Lucina peers past her at the riding track. “Quite a few people out today. Something going on?”

“Not in particular. Once the school year starts, many of the younger riders can only come on weekends. Speaking of school, how’s my other daughter doing?”

“Cynthia? She’s great,” Lucina stretches her arms. “But I probably shouldn’t sit parked in the road, right?”

“Ah, of course,” Say’ri nods in agreement. “I’m sure there will be time to catch up later.” She raps on the roof of Lucina’s car and watches her drive away.

Lucina finishes the drive slowly, careful to avoid any other hazards in the road. She passes the paddock and the stable parking lot before pulling into the farmhouse lot.

The porch is covered in signs of life, and with some smug satisfaction she can even guess what exactly belongs to whom. The doormat is Sumia’s - decorated with bright floral print and a large, cheerful “Welcome!”. There’s a porchswing, next to which sits a few freshly-stained wooden boards, no doubt Say’ri’s handiwork. An ashtray sits on a small table and Lucina half-smiles.

It’s only been two weeks since she’s seen Severa, but even with their constant texting and their nightly phone calls, it’s felt like a lifetime. It’s the longest they had been separated since…well, since they met. It was less than two years, but Lucina couldn’t imagine a life without Severa. She takes a deep breath and knocks once, twice.

On the third knock Sumia opens the door. “Oh!” She smiles brightly and mischievously. “Is that your car in the driveway? I thought it must be your dad dropping you off, driving an old junker like that.”

“Hello, Mrs. Fujiwara!” Lucina goes in for a hug. “Yeah, dad thought I should get my own car if I’m gonna be driving back and for from school every weekend.”

“He couldn’t have gotten you one a little…” Sumia squints at it. “Nicer?”

“You know how he is,” Lucina laughs. “And Morgan’s a senior so now __he’__ s going on about wanting one, so dad’s trying to spend as little money as possible.”

“Fair enough,” Sumia gestures to the door. “Come in, come in!” she talks, walking Lucina through the door. “The coffee’s cold, but I can heat you some up if you’d like?”

“Coffee sounds great,” Lucina pulls her light denim jacket off and hangs it by the door. Sumia’s voice echoes through the bottom floor of the house.

“Did you get in last night, or make the whole drive today?”

Lucina follows and sits at the dining room table, casually. It’s a table she’s sat at a thousand times before - she and Cynthia were close friends, even before school, since Sumia and hr father had been close. She looks around the kitchen, spying all the tiny little quirks and eccentricities of a house that she already knew and loved - the chipped tile right by the refrigerator, where Cynthia had dropped a box full of hardcover books; the rubbed edging along the hard edges of the kitchen counter, to prevent any accidents from the clumsier family elements; the window on the backyard and the field beyond, a window draped with transparent floral curtains; the wall-mounted pot rack, upon which hung a cast-iron skillet Lucina and Cynthia had once tried making macaroni and cheese in, with disastrous results. Lucina smiles, spacing out as her gaze drifts towards the open window, towards the blue sky.

“You awake in there?” Sumia taps her lightly before setting a mug before her and sitting at her side.

“Hm? Yeah, sorry. I had class until six last night, so I didn’t get back home till eight, and then, well…you know how my parents are.” Lucina wraps a hand around the mug of coffee and sniffs it.

“And how’s Cynthia doing?”

“She’s fine,” Lucina sips her coffee. “A little swamped already. Apparently her chem professor is a real pain. Between that and sorority stuff, I honestly haven’t seen too much of her. Things’ll probably calm down a little farther into the semester, I think.”

They smile and chat, sipping coffee and talking about Lucina’s classes, and Cynthia, and Lucina’s roommate Kjelle, who Sumia knows distantly.

The conversation eventually shifts to the purpose of Lucina’s visit. “Is Severa in?” she asks at last, the caffeine making her jittery and impatient.

Sumia pauses before speaking, her cheerful smile evaporating. “She…” she speaks softly and stirs her coffee. “She had a bad night last night. She’s resting in our room, upstairs.”

Lucina frowns. “Is…is she okay?”

“I think she’s…” Sumia pauses again. “She’s just having difficulty adjusting to school life again.”

“Oh.” Lucina’s head droops. She and Severa had been talking constantly, but Severa hadn’t mentioned problems at school. “Is it okay if I go see her?”

Sumia nods. “I was thinking she could maybe use some fresh air. Would you want to start lessons today?”

Lucina’s face lights with a bright smile.

 

 

-

 

Severa curls her arms tightly around herself and stares at the dirt. This is stupid. This is so stupid. She feels stupid, and she looks stupid, she hates everything, and her head hurts, and the stupid helmet strap is too tight, and her hair is going to look stupid, and-

“Hey, Severa!” Lucina’s cheerful voice cuts through her haze of frustration. “All ready to go?”

Severa looks up. Her bright pink helmet isn’t too big, but she obstinately refused to put effort into fitting the strap, so the chunk of obnoxious fiberglass-coated foam dipped over her eyes. Lucina gently takes the back of Severa’s head in her hands and tilts it backwards, adjusting it.

“Looks like your helmet is a little bit askew. I think the left side is too tight.” Lucina adjusts it accordingly, and Severa is loathe to admit that the relief of pressure taken off her scalp does feel better.

“Ouch!” she yelps, pulling back.

“Ah! Sorry!” Lucina holds her hands up. “Did I pinch you?”

Severa scowls. “You got my hair caught in the stupid buckle. Why do I even have to do this, anyway?”

“Because Dr. Florina said that it would be good for you,” Sumia cuts in, her horse deftly maneuvering to Severa’s side. She continues speaking as she dismounts. “Because she said that fresh air, sunshine, and exercise would be beneficial, as would having a hobby or pastime you can devote yourself to. It will give you a chance to learn and engage with our lives.” Her riding boots hit the dirt and she takes her helmet off, letting her curls of brown hair tumble down her shoulders. Behind her, her horse dips her head to nibble at some grass.

“Hello again, Mrs. Fujiwara!” Lucina beams brightly below her own helmet, a ugly neon yellow thing that rivals the brightness of her smile.

“How many times must I tell you, Lucina? Just ‘Sumia’ is fine.”

“Okay, Mrs. Sumia,” Lucina nods triumphantly.

Sumia attends to Severa first, tilting her chin up, checking her helmet before taking her hand lightly. “Is your wrist feeling okay?”

Severa nods, refusing to make eye contact. Instead her gaze passes beyond her mother to the horse behind her. Or, more accurately, three horses: Sumia’s mount, Ivory; Lucina’s intended mount, Caeda, and of course -

Severa growled. “Abel? Sumia, why?!”

Sumia smiles and turns to pat Abel’s flank. “Because you and this horse get along nicely.”

“No we don’t! He hates my guts!”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He still mad that I dropped that trowel on him.”

“But you feed him every morning and he loves you. Look, see? Hold out your hand.” Sumia makes it sound like a request, but she takes Severa’s good hand and tugs her lightly forward, extending her hand out to the horse’s snout. “See? He likes you.”

Abel snickers while Severa pets him.

“See? Good boy,” Sumia pats his flanks and turns to Lucina. “Are you okay with Caeda? She can be a little feisty but we always recommend her to our first-time riders.”

Lucina nods and confidently strolls up to the horse, reaching a hand out. “Caeda is a pretty name,” she purrs in her ear.

“Flattery will get you nowhere with these beasts,” Severa growls, taking a step back. Stupid Abel. Stupid Sumia. Stupid horses. Stupid Lucina and her stupid goofy smile and her ridiculous safety-yellow helmet. Severa folds her arms over her chest.

“Okay! Are you ladies ready for your first lesson?” Sumia says at last, after letting the two horses get acquainted with their riders.

“Yep!” Lucina says, tapping her riding boots in the dirt. She seems ready to go, her fingers drumming against her thigh with nervous energy.

Severa tucks her face into her shoulder. “Just take Lucina.”

“Oh, Severa,” Lucina steps towards her and rests a gentle hand on her forearm. “It’ll be fun. I promise. Right, Mrs. Sumia?”

Sumia smiles and nods. “After you practice a bit, you’ll be able to go with Say’ri and I on our rides around the property. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“Sounds like work.”

“Well,” Sumia admits, dipping her head. “It builds character.”

“That’s what Say’ri said about pouring concrete.”

“And didn’t that build character?”

“It ruined my hundred dollar sneakers.”

“She did tell you to wear work shoes.”

Severa huffs and scowls. “Look, I don’t care. Can we just get this over with?”

Sumia nods and returns to her horse, taking the reins. “I saddled both of them because Severa knows how to do it already, and I figured that would be a good thing for you to try teaching Lucina.”

Severa furrows her brow. “Why? It’s not like I can even do it right.”

Sumia smiles softly. “You do it just fine, dear. Now.” She takes walks her horse in a semi-circle, landing her perpendicular to the two learners. “The first step is mounting up. I know Abel is a little big, so I brought a mounting block for you, Severa. Lucina, you can probably handle mounting up from the ground.”

Lucina nods, stepping to her horse’s side and comparing heights. Severa growls and digs her boots into the dirt. Stupid shortness. Stupid mounting block.

Sumia produces a small plastic stepstool, the childishness of which makes Severa seethe. She bites back her tongue and allows Sumia to place it beside Abel and she climbs up.

“Perfect,” Sumia smiles. “Alright, now you - oh, Severa? Wait, you-” before Sumia can finish speaking, Severa lifts her foot and hooks it into a stirrup, taking hold of the reins to pull herself into the saddle and drape her leg on the far side. It’s a clumsy motion, inelegant and made all the more silly by her perpetual scowl, but even she can’t help but let a half-smile spread across her lips.

“What?” she frowns. “I’ve seen you and Cynthia do it a million times.”

Sumia beams. “Oh, wonderful! Just right, Severa. But in the future, be sure to check that your bridle bucks are correct.” She makes one last check of Severa’s horse, making a slight adjustment.

Severa’s pride melts. “I…I knew that.”

Sumia smiles warmly. “Of course, of course. Now, since Severa is all set, let’s get you ready to ride, okay, Lucina?”

Sumia finishes her lesson in half the time she had expected, only needing to instruct Lucina in how to mount up and get settled into her saddle. Lucina holds the reins stiffly, her legs jiggle in the stirrups, but she is ready to ride.

Sumia begins their lessons slowly; she goes over how to sit in the saddle, how to hold the reins. She pays special attention to Severa, making sure her poor posture doesn’t leave her slumped at odd angles in the saddle. Her wrist brace shouldn’t make it any more difficult to hold the reins, but she doesn’t let it stop her from complaining about it anyway. Sumia is patient, explaining again the techniques for controlling the horse.

Severa doesn’t hate is, surprisingly, but she doesn’t let it show on her face. The scowl never lifts from her lips, not even as Abel trots around the paddock at a brisk pace, not even as Lucina nearly fall off her horse as it goes galloping off wildly. Her head still hurts, and its frustrating to be limited to basic commands while watching Sumia expertly and wordlessly navigate her mount across the grass track.

She had been afraid of the horses, before. When she had first come to the farm, she wouldn’t even go in the stables - it was disgusting and messy and muddy and she’d always come out covered in hay, and the horses were big and nasty and smelly and she hated everything about it. Farms were gross, she had decided, and this one worst of all. She would sit cooped up in her room, shutting the blinds and ignoring the whinnying of horses and the laughter of her new family.

She coughs into her wrist brace and grimaces. The black fabric is dusted with a thin, sticky layer of red. She twists the reins around her other hand and wipes the brace on her denim jacket.

The sound of hoofbeats thudding against dirt approaches, reaching a crescendo as Sumia and her horse come to a halt at Severa’s side. “Are you feeling okay?”

Severa nods. “A little dizzy, I think.”

“Well, you have been out here for a few hours. Do you want to rest?”

Severa nods again, unwilling or unable to stop the disappointment from creeping across her face. The breeze felt nice in her hair, and she liked the smell of leaves and grass. It made her feel…something, but she wasn’t sure what. “Y-yeah, maybe.”

“Okay,” Sumia smiles. “I’ll go round up Lucina and - oh, jeez, not again.”

“Sorry, Miss Sumia!” Lucina cries from across the paddock, clinging on for dear life as her horse skitters to a halt at the fence.  

 

-

 

“Severa?” Say’ri knocks on her door, sticking her head into Severa’s room. Lucina is lounging on Severa’s bed, nose buried in a handheld game console, while Severa is sitting at her desk, poring over a worksheet by lamplight. The sunset creeps through the open window, casting an orange glow across the room.

She looks up. “Hm? What’s up?”

“Sumia and I were going to go for our walk.”

Severa’s face lights scarlet and she scowls. “So?”

“We just wanted to know if you wanted to come along.”

“God, Say’ri, no thanks! I don’t wanna see you two holding hands and being all gross and stuff.”

Say’ri smiles softly. “But you usually come al-”

“GOD!” Severa shouts, trying to cut her off in a shout of what Lucina can only assume is determined embarrassment. “I’m eighteen years old, I don’t need to go for a walk with-”

“A walk sounds lovely,” Lucina sits up, cutting her off. “I used to go for walks around the neighborhood with my mom, before her job made it hard for her to find the time. It’s actually one of the reasons I wanted to join the track team.”

“Perfect,” Say’ri smiles, and when she ducks out of the doorway Severa scowls and throws a foam stress ball at Lucina.

“What?” Lucina cries, giggling and dodging. “It sounds nice!”

“You’re the worst,” Severa groans. “First making me do riding lessons, now this?”

“Sounds like it’s something you usually do,” she teases in response, snapping shut her game and setting it on the bed. “It’s not embarrassing to spend time with your moms, you know. Cynthia and I used to hang out with them a lot.”

“Yeah, but…” Severa drops her pencil on the desk, slouching. “I’m tired, and my legs hurt from riding, and I just kinda wanted…y’know. An evening just for us.”

Lucina smiles and crosses the room, resting her hands on Severa’s shoulders and dipping her head to plant a kiss on the top of her head. “How about a compromise?”

 

 

Severa sticks her hands in the pockets of her denim jacket, bowing her head and kicking rocks along the trail. Lucina nudges her with her elbow until she relents and withdraws a hand, letting Lucina twine their hands together. It’s a beautiful evening, the fields glowing with the golden hues of early autumn, the setting sun casting rays of brilliant orange through the clouds. They follow the perimeter fence around the paddocks, trailing a decent distance behind Sumia and Say’ri - too far for each pair to hear the others’ conversation, but close enough that Severa can scowl at her adoptive mothers holding hands and walking __suspiciously__  close together.

“It’s cute.”

“So? What if I made you watch __your__  parents being all lovey-dovey.”

“One time Morgan said he came home from school and they were making out on the couch.”

“Ew, gross! Like, in the middle of the day?”

“Okay you say this like my father literally didn’t catch you in bed with me.”

“Well it wasn’t…like __that__.”

“Wasn’t it? I figured crawling into someone’s bed to make out with them definitely qualifies as a scandalous encounter.”

“Hmph.” Severa kicks a rock and sends it skittering off the dirt trail into the high grass beneath the wooden paddock fence. “Your dad still hates me, right?”

Lucina laughs and Severa can’t help but smile with her. Lucina’s voice sounds magical, like wind chimes in the autumn breeze, and she hates herself for indulging in it. “No, no, he’s not still mad.”

“What? I thought he was pissed. I remember some choice comments at the reunion this summer.”

“Well, he was drunk, and my mom had been complaining about the TV set not working. So naturally…”

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault!”

Lucina giggles and shakes her head. “No, but really, he’s not mad, I promise. I know everyone’s…” she sighs with mock disdain. “Everyone is __so__  excited for this Harvest Day. Aunt Emm is even flying out for it. So he has to be on his best behavior.”

“What if I light the turkey on fire.”

“I would personally thank you for saving us from my father’s awful cooking.”

Severa bursts into a fit of giggles, slipping her hand from Lucina’s to cover her mouth. “Oh, I’m sure it’s not __that__  bad.”

“I dunno, man. Maybe Aunt Lissa will do the cooking this year.”

“Yeah, I hope so.” Severa slips her hand back into her pocket. “Though, uh…do we know what our plans are? ‘Cause I know Sumia and Say’ri do a thing for the holidays, so…” She withdraws a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Sorry, do you mind?” she winces as she asks, sheepishly.

“It’s fine,” Lucina waves her on. “Though, are they gonna be pissed?” she gestures.

“They can deal,” Severa sticks an unlit cigarette between her lips and begins patting her jacket, looking for a lighter.

Lucina tries not to wrinkle her nose at the smell of it. She’s gotten used to it, almost frustratingly so, enough that the scent of menthol in her clothes makes her heart ache. She catches whiffs of it on campus, sometimes, and her eyes always begin wandering in search of scarlet hair. But then she inhales, and her lungs catch and she coughs.

“Sorry,” Severa says quietly, her eyes downcast. “I’m trying to quit. Promise”

“it’s okay,” Lucina slips her hand into Severa’s and twines their fingers together. “Really.”

“No, it’s not,” Severa replies. She shakes out ash with a tremble of her hand. “My doctors keep saying I need to quit. Something about it fucking with my medication or something.”

“Should I not be letting you, now, then?”

“I don’t know.”

Severa’s voice turns quiet, her breaths shallow and sharp, her eyes misty and fixed on the trail in front of them. It curves against the woods to their side, the paddock on the other, and the dusty orange of twilight casts mottled light through the trees. Severa drops her cigarette on the ground and crushes it with her bootheel.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s…it’s fine.” Severa coughs, and she doesn’t even realize she’s praying the crook of her sleeve won’t pull away red.

 

-

 

Lucina sits on the fence and watches Severa work with curious admiration.

“So what are you doing now?”

“Feeding the horses. It’s not that exciting.”

The sun has sunk below the horizon, and the farm is bathed in black, though the pale glow of floodlights still illuminates the farmhouse and the stables.

“Can I help?”

“Sure.”

Severa trudges into the stables, past the stalls, and explains her process in vague, disinterested terms. “So they get most of their food by grazing in the stables during the day, but we also want to make sure they have the grain feed. They all take different amounts, or whatever, so just use the containers they have by each of their stalls.”

Lucina picks up a plastic scoop and begins portioning out grain feed. “You can have a little extra for being such a good horse today,” she smiles, stopping at the stall of Severa’s favorite horse.

Severa pokes her head over the top of the stall divider and rests her arms on the upper edge. “Oh, don’t do that. Abel doesn’t deserve it.”

“Aw, he did so well today!”

“Yeah, and he’s still a stupid fucker.”

“I think he’s cute,” Lucina smiles.

“Then you’re stupid, too. Shouldn’t you be like, going home or something?”

“Sick of me already?”

Severa sighs and sits on a hay bale. She rests her face in her hands and closes her eyes. “N-no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Lucina nudges her with the worn tip of her sneaker. “I was just kidding.”

Severa’s fingers curl into her face. Why did she always do that? Getting snappy for no reason, insulting her, telling her to leave.

“You okay?” Lucina sits at her side and wraps an arm around her waist.

Severa nods wordlessly. It was so hard to stop herself from spiraling. Maybe it was better not to stop herself. To let herself break just a little bit, just in front of her. Lucina would understand, probably. “I’m okay.”

Lucina cups Severa’s chin in her hands and brushes a soft thumb across her cheek. “You’re crying.”

Of course she’s crying, she wants to say. Of course she fucking is, it’s obvious, and all she ever does is cry, because she’s just a stupid kid who never grew up. She parts her lips to speak but nothing comes out, no biting remarks or comebacks, no insults or jeers. She stumbles over an apology for words she didn’t even say.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” she whispers, hoarsely, and Lucina tugs her into a tight embrace. She presses her lips to her brow and tangles her hand in Severa’s long red hair, cradling her to her shoulder.

“It’s okay.”

Severa coughs, her breath catching. Her lungs feel like they’re collapsing against her, her heart giving way to a black despair creeping through her veins. She can’t stop a sob from slipping from her lips, and then another, and her voice cracks as she apologizes again.

“Shh,” Lucina says calmly, smoothing her hair. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Severa hates crying, and she feels like she’s been doing a lot of it lately. She wants to rip her heart open and bleed all over Lucina, to confess that she misses her so much her chest aches, to confess that she’s so afraid of the blood in her rattling cough, to confess how much she loves her new family, to confess how scared she is that it will all be torn away from her. She presses her face into Lucina’s collar and cries, her tongue twisting into gibberish and half-confessed truths, meaningless noise to fill the space between gasping breaths.

Lucina squeezes her back before shifting her hands, tracing along the curve of her spine and over her shoulders, taking her face in her hands, and Lucina kisses her softly, lips against salty cheeks. She kisses the tears from her eyes, gentle and kind, her own eyes glittering in the dark of the stable. It smells of horse and wet hay and the doors rattle with cold autumn wind, and Lucina holds her tight.

“I’ll always be here for you. I promise.”

 


	3. Autumn III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently this is the only fic my brain is currently capable of updating. I dunno, man.

Severa likes the train station. It’s quiet, especially at night, and seldom populated. The ticket desk closes at 8, so it’s mostly an empty box to house the occasional weary traveler. She sits on a bench on the concrete platform alongside the tracks and closes her eyes.

Trains don’t come by often, and when they do, they’re bound for places further down the line - other towns, more exciting ones. Eventually it reaches the city. She considers getting a ticket to see Lucina, sometimes. She fingers the silver of a pocket knife in her jacket and sighs.

She did this a lot, back then. Wandering, sitting under streetlights, in bus stations. She wishes she hadn’t finished her pack of cigarettes and instead picks at her wrist brace, fingers poking and prodding and searching for loose threads.

Behind her, in the station, the wall is plastered with posters and maps, racks of brochures and glass cases with little oddities that make believe it’s a stop worth visiting. There’s the ticket booth, bathrooms, benches for when it rains or snows. It’s dark, and dusty, and empty.

Severa stares at the night sky and watches a cloud drift across the moon.

On clear nights she can see the stars. She wraps her jacket around herself and fights off a shiver.

  


She likes taking walks at night. The air is clean and cold in her lungs, and she slips her hand into her pocket, one hand curling around her knife and the other around her keys. She watches the hazy neon of a sign flicker in and out of existence, a siren song on a roadside bar that already smells of smoke and alcohol and grease.

In her pocket, her phone buzzes. She rejects the call without even checking it.

  


-

  


Severa’s stomach drops when she sees the house lights still on.

For a moment, she considers climbing the drainpipe to her room, before she coughs into her elbow and her stomach lurches and she realizes she’s dreading even walking up the stairs. The railing up the porch steps is slippery, malleable, slick and untouchable to her fingers. She wipes her lips and fumbles for her keys.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?!” Sumia cries, leaping from her position on the couch and throwing her arms around Severa. “God, we’ve been worried sick! Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

“I’m fine,” Severa mutters, brushing her off testily.

“Fine? We’ve been so worried! We called Morgan, and Lucina, and their parents, and-”

“Shut up!” Severa winces and pushes back.

Sumia takes a step back, her relief melting into frustration. Behind her, Say’ri stands at the foot of the stairs, arms crossed under a stern, blank gaze. Impossible to read, as always. Severa scowls.

“Severa…” Sumia says, lifting her voice at the end, a cautious, probing intonation leaning towards a question. Severa takes a deep breath.

Here we go.

“Severa? Show me your face.”

“I said I’m fine,” Severa tucks her face into her collar and pulls her jacket tighter.

Sumia’s fingers brush her sleeve. “Is this…blood? Severa, let me see your face.” She moves to take Severa’s chin in her hands, but the girl is too quick, leaping back with an almost animalistic, impulsive response. She’s on the defensive immediately, folding her arms close and shrinking back against the front door, flinching away from Sumia’s touch.

“Severa…” Sumia’s voice is soft, her hands open and nonthreatening. “Please. I promise I won’t be mad.”

Severa stares at the wooden floorboards and the decorative weave rug. She is motionless, made of stone.

Sumia steps forward again. Severa flinches when her fingers brush her chin, and she lifts her guilty eyes up into Sumia’s.

Sumia’s breath catches in her throat.

The left side of Severa’s cheek is bruised, a black eye dark and prominent around her swollen eyelid. Her eyebrow is split and bleeding, and dried blood is caked around her nose. She winces as Sumia’s thumb brushes blood from her still-bleeding lip.

“What happened to you?” Sumia cries, her voice, straddling an uncomfortable line between shock and dismay, close enough to anger that Severa winces and pulls back. “Severa, tell me this instant what happened to you!” Panic bled into Sumia’s voice.

“I said I’m fine,” Severa lifts her wrist to her nose and wipes, smearing blood across her wrist brace.

“You’re not fine, you’re a mess!” Sumia gestures to her. It’s not just her face, she can see now - her sleeves are torn and scuffed, her boots untied, her hair mussed. Droplets of blood are scattered across her chest. “Who did this? Was this other kids?”

Say’ri steps between them, tenderly taking Sumia’s arms and pulling her into a soft embrace. “The important thing is that she is safe. Go, get some rest, and I’ll care for her.”

“B-b-but-” Sumia sputtered against Say’ri’s shoulder.

Say’ri takes her cheeks in her hands and presses a kiss to her brow. “Go, get some rest. You’ll need to be up to take care of the horses. I can take care of her.” The unspoken words are that Sumia’s panicked exasperation served to do little but make Severa more anxious, more skittish. Say’ri offers another kiss before sending Sumia off.

“Well,” Say’ri says matter-of-factly. “Shall we get you cleaned up?”

Severa wipes her nose again and nods. She follows Say’ri through the living room and up the stairs, all the while focused on the floor before her, numb and detached.

It would be easier if they were angry. That was at least something she was used to, something she could handle. She walks up the stairs slowly, leaning heavily against the wooden banister. It was so fucking infuriating. Just yell at her! she wants to cry, to beg. Hit her! She’s so goddamn frustrating and nothing she does makes them cave. She stumbles on the landing and Say’ri catches her with gentle, waiting arms. She slips a hand around the small of Severa’s back and helps walk her to the bathroom.

Severa tries to sniffle but her nose is clogged with blood. She coughs.

“Almost there,” Say’ri says quietly. “It must have been a very hard walk.”

The does the trick. A tear worms its way out of the corner of Severa’s eye, then another. She grinds her teeth together - she refuses to feel sorry for herself. This was her choice. She doesn’t need anyone else to pick her up off the floor - she had always done it herself anyway.

Say’ri deposits her on the closed toilet lid and kneels to begin rooting around in the cabinet under the sink. She finds a first aid kit, a bottle of peroxide, ointment and disinfectant. Severa closes her eyes and leans back, letting her head thunk against the wall. The blunt pain feels muted, numbed, diluted.

She could do it herself - god knows she licked her own wounds enough times. A nap and some cigarettes and she’d be golden.

A cold cloth presses against her cheek, wiping blood away. She hisses.

“Sorry, dove,” Say’ri says quietly. “It will hurt.” She pulls the cloth along Severa’s skin and wipes the blood from her brow, her lips. She rinses it before wiping her nose. Severa stares at the pinkish splatter in the sink swirling around the drain.

“Can you look at me?” Say’ri asks. She tilts Severa’s head to the side and finishes cleaning. Severa blinks slowly, sluggishly. Say’ri presses the cold cloth against Severa’s eye. “Hold this here, it will make the swelling go down.” She frowns.

Severa blinks again, wincing against the cold sting of the cloth. She shifts her eyes down, unwilling to meet Say’ri’ gaze.

“Severa?” the name is spoken quietly, the forming of a question by someone who already knows the answer. Say’ri purses her lips and is quiet for a time before speaking. “Are you high?”

Severa instinctively clenches her jaw. “No.”

Say’ri sighs and leans back. “I need to know if you’ve taken anything so I can give you medicine.”

“I said I’m not.”

“Your pupils are the size of dinner plates.” She grasps Severa’s shoulder firmly but gently. “What did you take?”

Severa stares at Say’ri’s waist. Her mind is awash with numbness and vague shapes. She can barely remember walking home, much less anything before. “I…I’m not sure.”

Say’ri takes the cloth from her hand and tilts her head back, pressing a thumb to her eyelid to pull it back and gaze into Severa’s wide, bloodshot eyes. She blinks against the touch and winces.

“I can’t give you anything if you don’t know what you took. Were you drinking?”

“I’m sorry,” Severa blurts, unable to stop herself.

“I know,” Say’ri says, hooking her arm around Severa’s head and pulling it against her shoulder. She strokes her hair and whispers to her softly, in a language Severa recognizes but can’t understand.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, quieter. Her eyes sting. Her head swims. She closes her eyes and presses her forehead into the crook of Say’ri’s neck and lets her hold her.

Say’ri smooths the back of her hair and begins untangling the two tails of red, letting them drape down her back in a single cascade like a fall of blood against the denim of her jacket. Say’ri touches her softly, kindly, pulling the jacket from her shoulders and checking her arms for wounds.

“You shoulda seen the other guy,” Severa said, pushing herself up and back and groping for the cold washcloth. Dried tears track down her cheeks.

Say’ri smiles wryly and humors her while she applies styptic, antiseptic, and bandages to Severa’s cuts. “Did you win?”

Severa pouts and grumbles. “I lost my knife.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Say’ri says, tilting Severa’s head back again. “This is going to sting.”

The peroxide always stings. Severa watches it fizzle and bubble in the cuts on her arms, fresh red gashes interspersed with older lines traced in pale white. She pushes a sob down her throat and curls her hand into a fist - the muted feeling of nails digging into skin helps dull the burning. A hand softly pushes into hers and spreads her fingers to thread between them. Say’ri holds her hand firmly.

“You can squeeze. It’s okay.”

Severa does. It hurts. Her face is the worst, and the unpleasant feeling of chemicals fizzling on her lips isn’t aided by the sting of antiseptic. Her head still spins and her stomach churns, and she’s not entirely sure what’s in it. Say’ri’s hand is something, though, something grounding.

“I don’t want you to go to school tomorrow,” Say’ri says, applying a last adhesive bandage to Severa’s forehead. “I want you to stay home and work on the back porch with me. Okay?”

Severa nods into her washcloth.

  


-

  


“Is she okay?” Sumia asks softly, slipping out of bed to Say’ri’s side.

Say’ri nods and wraps her arms around Sumia, pulling her tight and resting her chin on her head. Her hands rest lightly on Sumia’s silk nightgown, pressing into her flesh with a quiet, measured desperation. “She’s asleep, at least. I’m going to stay up and keep an eye on her. You should get some rest.”

Sumia laughs. “As if I can sleep now. I’ve been sick to my stomach all night.”

“It’s fine now, love. She’ll live, though I do not envy how she’ll feel tomorrow.”

“Did she say anything?”

Say’ri pulls Sumia tighter and brushes her lips over her cheek. “No, but she may feel well enough to talk tomorrow. I said she should stay home from school.”

Sumia nods and turns, sitting on the edge of the bed. “That’s probably for the best.”

She takes a deep breath, sighing and smoothing the hem of her nightgown over her knees. “I just…I don’t know what we can do to help her.”

Say’ri shrugs and sits at Sumia’s side. She rests a firm, comforting hand over Sumia’s and stills her anxious fidgeting. “Kindness and patience is what she needs. And, perhaps, for the time being, a close eye.”

“Grounding her?”

“That’s a harsh way to put it.”

Sumia laughs, but the sound is anxious, humorless. “Sometimes she really does remind me of her mother.”

Say’ri’s lip curves into a half-smile. “Cordelia had a knack for fighting?”

Sumia shakes her head and leans into Say’ri, resting her head against her shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe the number of times she’d come back from the library at three in the morning, strung out on caffeine. One time she called me asking for help because her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t carry her books.”

“A hard worker, then?”

“That’s an understatement. She had problems with bullies, too.”

“Then perhaps Severa isn’t so different after all.”

Sumia kisses the curve of her jaw. “Thank you.”

“Hm?” Say’ri raises an eyebrow.

“For…” Sumia purses her lips. “For embarking on this adventure with me.” She smiles. “Again.”

Say’ri kisses her back, soft lips against soft lips, and she pushes her lightly back into the pillow. “Cynthia never came back at three in the morning.”

“And Severa probably won’t fall off the hayloft and wind up in the hospital.” Sumia curls up into the pillows and pulls her blanket up to her chest. She leans out and kisses Say’ri’s forehead. “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

“Of course, dove.”

  


-

  


Severa thumps to the floor as soon as she tries to drag herself out of bed. She blinks in the morning light, at the bright sun streaming through her closed blinds. From her face-down position on the carpet, she rotates. She frowns. A stuffed pegasus is gathering dust in the shadowed corner under Cynthia’s bed. She squints at it.

She look for the clock at her bedside table, but it’s out of view. All she can tell is that the sun is up. She considers groping for her phone, but she can’t find it - her charger dangles empty off the edge of her desk. She sighs.

Her mouth tastes like she’s been gargling hot grease. Her head pounds, her throat is hoarse and raw, and every muscle in her body aches and burns. She tries pushing herself up, but after slipping her arms under her torso, she gives up, collapsing with a thud back to the floor. She closes her eyes and rests the side of her face into the carpet.

When she wakes again, the scene is the same - the sunlight is maybe brighter, but the clock is still out of reach. She manages to haul herself to her feet.

She stands in front of her vanity and looks for her phone. Her gaze passes over herself in the mirror - bare, skinny legs, black underwear, oversized t-shirt. Good. Bandaged arms, adhesive bandages on her face, black eye. Not good. She leans on the vanity as a wave of nausea washes over her.

Making it to the stairs is a more monumental task. The light of the hallway is blinding, the stairwell doubly so. She glares at her clock as she passes, but her eyes won’t focus - the LED lights seem to be blurry and changing as she stares. Her head burns.

The bathroom medicine cabinet is locked. She thumps the cabinet weakly, too sore and tired to do more than a token blow. Maybe Say’ri or Sumia has her migraine meds.

She leans against the hallway wall and rests on her way to the staircase. She tries to remember why her head pounds and her stomach keeps trying to digest itself. She prods her thin midsection and winces.

She stands at the top of the stairs, dizzy with vertigo. It’s a long way down. She grasps the banister and clings to it like a life raft.

“Everything hurts,” she says quietly, though her hoarse throat comes up with phlegm and spit. She takes a step and staggers, leaning against the doorframe.

Sumia’s chattering away loudly, a phone cradled in the crook of her neck. Even from the edge of the kitchen, Severa could hear the voice on the other end.

“Well, I just don’t think that’s fair,” Sumia said sternly. “If it’s your silverware, it doesn’t seem fair that she keeps stealing it. And she doesn’t even wash it?”

Cynthia’s voice comes through loud and clear in response.

Severa winces at the noise and stumbles towards the counter.

“H-Hey, Sumia, is it bad if you throw up in a sink?” Severa slumps and gags.

“Oh, uh, nope, we should probably not do that,” Sumia says, getting up and taking Severa’s arm. “Sorry, Cynthia, can I put you on hold for a second?” She sets the phone on the table and guides Severa away from the kitchen sink, towards the bathroom.

Severa can only recall a few times she’s felt worse than at present. As she kneels at the toilet and evacuates the contents of her stomach (mostly acid and what tastes like ethanol), she tries to piece together the bits of pain she recognizes, or can at least recall.

The back of her head hurts, and that’s unmistakable - it wasn’t the first time someone had smashed something over the back of her head, and her piece-of-shit foster father hit much harder than some drunken sap. The black eye she couldn’t place, but she suspected it was on her way home. She remembers getting uncomfortably friendly with a fence-post as she tried taking a shortcut back through their property.

She slumps at the table and holds an ice pack to her face. Sumia offers what little comfort she can - ibuprofen, Severa’s buffet of medications, cold water. She chats with Cynthia idly while she fixes something for Severa’s breakfast.

She blinks slowly and looks at the clock over the stove. Okay, fine. Late lunch, early dinner. Whatever a three o’clock meal amounts to.

She tries taking proper stock of her injuries as she chokes down her medication. No blood, except what’s dried under bandages, all her teeth still there, no joints cracked or sprained. Good. Maybe she was holding up better than she had expected.

“Do you want to talk to Cynthia?” Sumia offers, tilting the phone in Severa’s direction. “She wants to say hi and I need to finish up your food.”

Severa nods and extends a sluggish, weary hand out to catch the phone.

“Hey, Sev!” the bright and chipper voice is piecing in Severa’s headache brain.

“H-hey,” she says, her own voice like she’s been gargling gravel.

“You feeling alright?”

“I feel like a shit sandwich,” Severa groans, slumping back in her chair.

Cynthia laughs. “Yeah, mom said you had a pretty rough night. I’m glad your okay, though. Have you talked to Luci yet?”

Severa’s stomach twists into knots. “No,” she says, her voice quieting. She can hear Cynthia pause on the other end of the phone.

“I haven’t told her anything, if that’s what you’re wondering. Just that you’re okay.”

“Thanks.” The word is thick in Severa’s throat, and she swallows, fighting down an urge to retch.

She couldn’t remember anything about what she had been thinking the night before - she had gone out with Morgan and Nah for pizza, and then...then a blank. A void. Nothing in the space between a quiet nighttime walk home and pain and aching and blood in the sink. Maybe she had been hoping she would die.

She hopes that a lot.

“Sev?” Cynthia asks. “You there?”

“Huh?” Severa blinks. Her left eye hurts when she does. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Maybe you should get some rest or something.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Severa watches Sumia work, stirring something in a pan. It smells good, but through the filter of dried blood in her nose she can’t pick out any scents. Her stomach growls.

“Um…” Severa fumbles over her words and blinks slowly. She can’t swallow past a lump in her throat. “Can…” her voice is almost a whisper. “Can you just stay on the line a little bit?”

“Huh?” Cynthia asks. “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

“Never mind,” Severa says, sitting up. “Tell Luci to call me if you run into her, okay?” She tries to focus on Cynthia’s voice, the snatches of it coming through the line. “Thanks. Yeah. Love you too.” She slides the phone across the table and breaths, watching her breath fog up the outside of the ice pack. It’s less cold and more wet, but it still feels nice against her bruises and cuts.

God, she wanted a smoke.

“Did Cynthia tell you about her new club?” Sumia asks, spinning. She’s got a platter in her hands, resting against the pink of her apron, and Severa’s stomach growls. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she was staring into a crock of soup and a freshly-grilled cheese toastie. She rips into the sandwich and has two bites down her throat before the sting of butter against split lip catches up to her, sparking pain across her mouth.

“Hm?” she asks, mouth full. “Club?”

“She’s…Sev? You’re bleeding a little bit.” Sumia tilts back Severa’s head and dabs blood from her eyebrow with a napkin.

“I’m fine,” Severa mutters. She stares at her food, suddenly guilty. “I’m…” the sandwich tastes like ash as her stomach turns. “I’m…” Her brain short-circuits, pain and embarrassment colliding into a fizzling void that consumes all of her thoughts. She smells blood and feels the salt of tears against the broken flesh of her face.

“Severa?” Sumia asks, quietly. “Are you okay?”

Severa drop half her sandwich to the table and wraps her arms around herself, slowly.

“What’s wrong?” Sumia asks, her voice soft and concerned. She touches Severa’s shoulder. “Do you not like it? Say’ri said cheese toasties-”

“It’s not a fucking toastie!” Severa shouts, snapping and pushing Sumia back. “It’s a fucking grilled cheese! Where the fuck are you from?!” She pushes herself away from the table and gets to her feet, staggering to the edge of the kitchen before the nausea catches up to her. She doubles over and hits the tile floor with her knees.

It hurts.

She blinks, surprised at the tears running down her face, blurring her vision, tracking droplets of moisture on her bare legs. It hurts, collapsing to her knees.

“Severa?” Sumia’s voice is soft in her ear, gentle as arms fold tenderly around her shoulders.

  


-

  


Severa’s laying on the couch when Lucina calls. She sits up, wrapping her blanket tight around her shoulders, and blows her nose, dropping the soiled tissue among countless others. She stares at the buzzing phone.

For a brief moment she considers not answering it. Maybe it would be better that way. She could never speak to Lucina again, and then she wouldn’t have to explain herself.

The buzzing stops.

Severa’s heart sinks. There’s no winning this game - but what would she even say to Lucina? What was there to say?

Hello, girlfriend, love of my life, my light, my star, my savior, my lighthouse, the rock against which I dash myself like the waves of the sea. Sorry I took ketamine and got glassed with a bottle of scotch.

She wipes her nose and coughs.

The buzzing starts again.

“Hey, Luci,” she says almost inaudibly.

“Hey,” comes the response. It’s amazing how much Severa can glean from that one word, that filler sound. Disappointment, relief, affection, sadness, frustration. Irritation. Anger, maybe. Hatred. Now she’s just projecting.

Severa opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out. She can hear Lucina on the other end, breathing. Silence on the line, miles of static between them.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Want to talk about something else?”

“Yeah.”

“Kjelle roped me into the fencing team.”

Severa tries to smile but she can’t. “Oh.”

“She said they needed an other  épée and I’m incapable of not trying to help.”

“Have you ever fenced before?”

“Nope, but I’m willing to give it a shot. My dad’s been bugging me to pick up an extracurricular anyway. Say’s it’ll help my attention problems if I have a, uh, what’d he call it? Outlet for all my nervous energy?”

“Yeah, my doc said something similar.”

“Want to fence?”

“Don’t think they’ll take high-schoolers.”

The conversation fizzles out. It was a good run, those few seconds. Severa stares at the hand in her lap, the wrist brace pressed against her bare thigh. She couldn’t fence even if she wanted to. Not unless her other hand suddenly picked up the slack.

“Say’ri got you working on the porch?”

“Yeah, we set up the foundations yesterday.”

“So what’s the next step?”

“I don’t know.”

“I bet she’s thankful to have a helper.”

“Yeah.”

She wants to cry, but she’s all out of tears to shed. Run dry, reduced to red-rimmed eyes and a tense, knotted stomach. Maybe she did know what she was doing last night. Would it be easier to admit it to someone else than to herself?

“Have you still been riding?”

“Sometimes. When I feel okay.”

“Okay.” Lucina’s voice is gentle, frustratingly so. Severa wishes she’d just get it over with. Or yell at her, or finally break up with her. Whatever. She pressed her hand against her chest. Her heart beat an unsteady rhythm, made frantic as her thoughts spun in her skull.

Severa can feel her nose running, but she refuses to sniffle. Lucina would hear it.

“Sev?”

“Yeah.” Severa can hear tapping on the other side of the line, plastic keys.

“I can be there by six-thirty.”

“You have homework to do. And classes. It’s a two-hour drive.”

“Do you want me there?”

Severa blinks and stares at her thin legs. She hasn’t looked in a mirror, but she can’t imagine she’s improved since she rolled out of bed. “Can…” she speaks quietly. “Can you just stay on the line?”

“Of course.”

Severa nods, knowing Lucina can’t see. She does want Lucina there - she wishes she could hold her hand, bury herself in her arms and pretend things might be okay. She slept better with Lucina’s body against hers.

“Do you want me to talk?”

“No, it’s. Sorry, you can go.”

“Sev.”

All she knew how to do was inconvenience people. To make them wait while she pulled the scrambled fragments of her brain together long enough to hold a conversation, waiting just long enough until the cracks came through and the pressure overcame her and she broke again. Lucina needed to study - god knows she needed all the edge she could get, and here Severa was, sitting silent on the phone. She stares at the lukewarm bowl of untouched soup on the coffee table and the half-eaten sandwich beside. Sumia had worked so hard to make her something to eat, and she couldn’t.

What was the point at all?

“I’m sorry,” Severa says at last.

Lucina says nothing, for some time, and then. “Sev, can I ask you a favor?”

Severa swallows. “Y-yeah.”

“I…I don’t want you to talk to me about it, not if you don’t want to. But please, just...talk to someone about it, okay? Sumia, Say’ri, your therapist, Cynthia, hell, talk to Morgan if it’d help. But…I want you to talk to someone about it, okay? Can you do that?”

“I don’t know.” Maybe the first truth Severa has spoken this whole time.

“Can you try?”

“I want to.”

“I love you very much.”

  


-

  


Severa sighs heavily and unscrews the cap of her coffee thermos. It’s a cold morning, the vestiges of fall finally melting away. The trees had shed most of their leaves, and the fields were piling with crinkly gold and brown and red, scattered across the grass as it faded from pale green to yellow. The morning sun settles on the fields like gold, and she leans against the back of the house, watching Sumia in the barn.

Her head still hurts, but the bruises are almost gone.

The back porch is little more than a skeleton, unpainted wood set into concrete foundations laid against compacted gravel, cast in shadow as the sun rises. Say’ri readies her tools, running an extension cord from some far-off outlet to the array of power tools she had set up on her sawhorses.

Severa takes another sip, sets her coffee down, and fumbles in her hoodie pocket for her pack of cigarettes. When she exhales, her breath crystallizes in a white cloud in front of her face.

It was the porch or the horses, and Abel had thrown her off the other day, so she was spitefully avoiding the barn.

“Severa?” Say’ri looks up at last. “Could you help me align these boards?”

Damn. Not enough time for a quick smoke.

Severa doesn’t mind the smell of sawdust and burning wood like she thought she would. She had taken a shop class, forever ago, but she never did any of the work. Turns out, she didn’t really hate making things. She holds an unpainted board steady while Say’ri aligns it on the sawhorses.

“Remember the rule?” Say’ri asks.

“Measure twice, cut once,” Severa intones.

“Right.” Say’ri kneels at her toolbox and pulls out two pairs of plastic safety goggles.

Severa groans. “Really? It’s just cutting wood!”

“When power tools are out, safety gear is on.”

Severa scowls and slides the goggles over her face. She remembered to wear the right clothing, this time, and hopefully can keep herself from getting mud or grease on her nice clothing that she actually cares about. It’s Sumia’s hooded sweatshirt, old enough that it smells like mothballs and lived in the attic for the past decade, probably. She’s got actual work boots, now.

“Do you want to do the measurements?”

Severa shrugs.

“Here,” Say’ri extends her hand out and drops a measuring tape in Severa’s waiting palm. “We’re cutting the boards for the stairs, so it should be…?”

Severa frowns. Say’ri had drawn up the plans weeks ago, how was she supposed to remember numbers? “Four feet?”

“Good,” Say’ri says, and the pride in her voice is unmistakable.

Severa uncoils the measuring tape and hooks it over the end of one of the boards. Say’ri has a wood pencil to mark the measurements, and they work together to measure each board. She doesn’t trust Severa with the circular saw, not yet, but she lets Severa watch as she cuts the boards.

The smell of coffee and sawdust mingle with the cold morning air, with the scent of autumnal fields and hay and horses. Severa adjusts her goggles and wipes the film of breath-fog from the plastic lenses.

“Very good,” Say’ri says, checking their handiwork. “Do you want to try setting up the frame?”

Severa doesn’t like kneeling in the gravel, but she does it. It’s hard to look angry in a position like that, half-sprawled out, aligning boards, marking them with pencils, tapping in nails. She sips her coffee as she works, taking a break every time a power tool is needed, whenever Say’ri needs to correct a measurement or pry out misaligned nails or sand down rough-cut edges.

She wishes she had brought gloves. By the time the sun rises high enough to cast light on the back lot, her fingers are chapped and dry, red from the cold and her fingers scrabbling at metal and wood. She got a splinter, too, with all the requisite griping and moaning that came with, but she didn’t chip a single nail. Good, she had just painted them.

She watches Say’ri finish sorting boards for the railing. Not boards, she corrects herself - turned balusters. Or whatever. Say’ri had lathe-turned them herself, over the last few weeks. Or, whatever it was she did in her workshop. They were smooth and even.

“Severa?”

Severa looks up.

“Do you want to try installing some, or shall we break for lunch?”

Severa hasn’t realized how hungry she is, or how she hasn’t once reached for her cigarettes. She’s been too occupied with wood and metal and gravel and sunlight. She blinks, surprised that her stomach is growling. “Lunch?”

“You’ve been working so hard,” Say’ri smiles, reaching up and tugging her goggles up to rest on her forehead. She wipes sawdust from her jeans. “Would you like to go out somewhere?”

“Uh,” Severa hadn’t been prepared for the question.

Say’ri’s smile turns up at the corner, a warm tint in her cheeks. On some level, Severa knows it’s pride, but she tells herself it’s blush from the cold. Her own face is rosy and sensitive.

“Um…I could keep working, I guess.” Severa sits on the newly-assembled stairs. They smell fresh, like Say’ri’s workshop. “Could we just order a pizza, or something?” She leans back on her hands, favoring her left more heavily.

“I’ll tell Sumia."

  
  



	4. Autumn IV

 

 

Severa hates the smell of paint and varnish. She doesn’t mind the smell of lumber, of sawdust, of burning wood and grinding metal, but something about the acrid bitterness makes her stomach churn. Maybe the fumes are too close to huffing gasoline, or maybe she hates the way that it makes her lungs burn and her nose wrinkle. She stifles a cough as she watches Say’ri stick the flat end of a screwdriver under the bent rim of a paint can and pull.

It’s not actually paint, just wood stain, a light cherry to match the back porch to the front, but it smells all the same. 

Say’ri offers Severa a brush.

“Can I not?” she asks quietly, more irritated than anything else. This goddamn deck was going to take forever, and the weather had started calling for snow, meaning Say’ri was more and more insistent on getting it done as soon as possible. Every day after school, it was this or that - measuring and cutting boards, aligning balusters, and now this - staining. “I have a paper I need to work on.”

Say’ri rests her hands on her hip and regards Severa’s excuse with suspicion. “The porch needs to be finished before Friday. Would you like to work on it after dinner?”

“Um...can you just do it?” Severa began inching towards the back door. “I’m just...y’know, tired. And my hand’s been acting up.”

“Just the balustrade, then. It will take not ten minutes.”

“Say’riiiiiiii,” Severa groans.

“Severa.”

“Ugh. Fine, fine, fine, fine.” Severa bends over and picks up a brush with her good hand before dipping it into the can of stain. The liquid is thick and gummy and she practically scoops it out into a big pile to slather on the railing. It runs in thick rivulets down the wood and pools up in dark brown piles.

“Like this,” Say’ri says calmly, picking up her own brush and using it to fix Severa’s mistakes, evening out the layer of stain. “Brush lightly, and do not apply too much. It will take several coats.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Severa brushes her off, doing it again. She doesn’t care. It’s the back porch anyway, what does it matter? 

And again, Say’ri diligently corrects her mistake. “Here,” she offers, setting her own brush down and taking Severa’s hand in her own. She nests the back of Severa’s hand against her palm and wraps her fingers around Severa’s. “Tell me if it hurts.” She guides Severa’s hand to dip it in the stain and lifts it to scrape the excess off on the metal rim of the can. 

“Ow,” Severa winces as Say’ri bends her wrist a little too far. 

“Apologies, dove.” Say’ri adjusts her grip and guides Severa to brush the posts more evenly, coating it in a thin layer of stain. “Now, you try.”

“This is stupid,” Severa says, after a few minutes of the two of them quietly working. “Why does it need more than one coat? It’s going to look the same, isn’t it?”

“The stain needs to be strong enough to not wear down. You’d rather do this again in six months?”

“No,” Severa grumbles, sitting cross-legged on bare wood. “It’s just...I helped make the damn thing, can’t you finish it?”

“Aye, but that betrays the point.”

“Then what is the point?” 

Say’ri brushes herself off and sits next to Severa. “The point is to create something of your own.” She gestures to the unfinished porch. “You did this. You made this with your two hands.”

“You did all the work,” Severa scowls. She paws at her pockets and withdraws her cigarettes. “Can I be done, please?”

Say’ri sighs deeply and rubs her temples. Severa had finished almost a third of the work she was supposed to. 

There’s a click of a lighter and Say’ri closes her eyes. 

Severa inhales deeply. “I really do have homework,” she says after a moment. “I promise I’ll help more tomorrow, I’m just feeling kinda shit-” she drops her cigarette and doubles over, coughing. Her pack splatters into a pool of stain and she weakly pushes herself up, coughing. 

“Severa?!” Say’ri leaps to her feet, arms ready to catch Severa and support her. Instead she leans forward and rests against the railing, breathing heavily. 

“Are you okay?” Say’ri asks, touching her elbow.

“Y-yeah,” Severa breathes, once she’s checked her spit to make sure its the truth. No blood. Good. “Just...I think I should take a break. The fumes, and all that.”

Say’ri frowns. “Aye, very well. But you had better be truly working on schoolwork after resting.”

“I will, I will,” Severa grumbles. “Sorry.”

Say’ri watches her go, shutting the back screen door behind her. She kneels picks up the sticky pack of cigarettes before resuming her work. 

 

-

 

Severa curls up on the couch under a blanket, book tucked under her arm, coffee on the side-table at her side, the steam cast a glowing yellow in the lamplight. Wind howls outside, a cold autumn night that strips the leaves from the trees and rattles the boards of the barn and the frames of the windows. She hugs her hoodie tighter around herself and burrows down, beneath the warm comfort of her blanket. She checks her phone, but she knows it’s futile - Lucina’s got night classes on these days, and she won’t be out of class for some time.

Even though it’s been nearly a year, Severa still hasn’t quite gotten a handle on owning her own cellphone. To her, it’s mostly used to text Lucina and to call Say’ri or Sumia for rides. Sometimes other kids would text her - Morgan, occasionally. Nothing was more curiously humiliating than having an issue with her phone, and going to Say’ri about it, and the two of them going to Sumia, and then the three of them giving up and calling Cynthia. She always knew how all that shit worked.

Severa sets it down on the side table and picks up her coffee. She could hear Sumia in the kitchen washing dishes and humming, and Say’ri was probably in her office, working. She was always working - when it wasn’t the porch, it was pecking away at her laptop, making calls, doing...whatever it was that she did. Something business-y, and that meant something that Severa couldn’t care less about. 

She opens her book and thumbs the worn pages idly. The cover is ripped, in places, and taped over with packing tape. The adhesive sealed in some of the stains, dirt and gravel and rain and tears, and some of the edges are brown with dried blood. This marks the first time she had read it since being adopted, and opening it felt weird. It felt fake, like she was trying too hard to dip into escapism. She glanced at the inside cover. There were initials scribbled in the corner, in faded black ink.  _ SF.  _ She presses a fingertip against it. 

The pages rustle warmly at her as she opens it, the same words she had read so many times before.  _ Prologue: Birth of the Holy Knight _ . 

She didn’t much care for the start - it was a little dry, lots of names and places, the sorts of things that were considered Good Worldbuilding by people with more patience than her. She had tried lending it to Lucina for her to read and she couldn’t even muddle through the first chapter’s dry, romantic prose. Ugh, and one of the main antagonists shows up early. 

She must make a face, because Sumia laughs from her armchair, knitting on her lap. 

Severa scowls and shuts her book. “Were you just watching me read?”

Sumia smiles softly. “I haven’t seen that book in years.”

“Yeah, well, it’s your copy. You can have it back, but it’s a little, uh,” Severa holds it up by the cover and the flaps of torn paper. “Maybe I can get you a new one for your birthday.”

Sumia laughs and stands up, crossing the bedroom. “Oh, nonsense, I got a new copy years ago.”

Severa sits up and looks over her knees. “N-no, it’s okay, I like my copy-”

“I have a surprise for you,” Sumia says, sliding a book off the shelf. She bunches up the blankets at Severa’s feet and sits next to her. “Here.” 

It’s another book, a little bit thinner and less care-worn, the cover emblazoned with a dragon emblem. Severa squints at it. “What...what is this?”

“It’s a sequel,” Sumia explains. “It came out a few years after the first one, to worse reception, but I think you might like it more.”

Severa sets her book down on the side table and takes the book from Sumia’s hands. She reads the cover silently to herself. “Why do you think I’d like it more?”

“Oh, just knowing what I do about you,” Sumia smiles playfully. 

Severa bends back the pages, letting her thumb rustle through them, the pages shuffling by in a blur of black ink and faded white. She catches snatches of names and places, some she recognizes, others she doesn’t. She flips to the back cover and regards it with suspicion. “Hm.”

“I mean, you don’t have to read it, I just think there’s some characters you might like.”

Severa scowls. “I don’t care about spoilers, you can just tell me.”

“Well, it’s got less romance, and I can only assume you weren’t a big fan of all the lovey-dovey stuff.”

Incorrect, but Severa allows it.

“It’s got more action, and more cool girl knights, which I know you like.”

That’s better.

“Plus, I think you might really like this one girl, Mareeta.”

“Stupid name.”

Sumia smiles and pats her leg. “I think you might really like her story, is all.”

Severa nods and sets the book on top of her own and picks up her coffee. “I’ll think about it.”

“You don’t have to!” Sumia laughs. “I’m just offering it, I know you really liked the other one." 

“I don’t know,” Severa says quietly. She stares at the creamer swirling in her coffee, having settled out from minutes of being untouched. She never much cared for sequels - she liked things with neat, tidy endings, things that wrapped up with a little bow and a happily ever after. Something about sequels made her nervous, like the ever-present thought that it never  _ ends _ \- that the pain and suffering and struggle never really stopped, and books with sequels just chose moments to pause the story. There’s something calming in completeness. 

She sips her coffee and stares out the window into the darkness of the farmland. Somewhere, in that general direction, Lucina was in class, probably failing to take notes. Severa misses her a lot. She always does. 

 

-

 

Rain patters against the windows, a dull thump that sounds in Severa’s ears, making it hard to focus. She thinks about the rain, about being outside, about being anywhere but here. The atmosphere makes her tense and makes her weepy, and she hates being both of those things. It’d be easier if she could smoke. She bites her nails instead, picking off the upper edge of her polish. She hates it here. Her folding chair is uncomfortable, and she couldn’t care less about any of the other kids.

How was it that she was always the oldest, in whatever sort of group she was in? Was it arrested development? Did she stop growing at age twelve? The other kids were fine, she supposed, but they’re still other people. And she hates other people. 

She looks around the circle, at the others, at the doctor across from her, and her gaze lingers on someone she hadn’t seen here before. Someone familiar.

“Severa? Is there anything you’d like to talk about today?”

Severa crosses and uncrosses her legs, letting her heavy leather combat boots dig into the carpet with each shift. She frowns and shakes her head.

“Are you sure? You didn’t speak last time, either.”

“I’m okay.” Severa stares at the ground. “Sorry,” she says quietly.

The woman across from her smiles, softly, and gazes at her, waiting patiently. They had talked about this in their individual sessions, and Severa hated it. She hated having to talk about herself, and all of her stupid shit, and to have to unload it in front of a bunch of goddamn strangers. She picked a fraying edge of her sleeve cuff. 

“Um.” Severa starts weakly. “I don’t know.” She shrugs and leans back, her face burning. She’s floundering. “Sorry.”

“Well,” the woman across from her checks her notes. “The last time you spoke you talked about your frustration with school.”

“Yeah, because I’m stupid,” Severa says without thinking. “S-sorry, Doctor Maribelle.”

Maribelle smiles again. “You don’t have to call me ‘doctor’, dear. You know that. Did you want to talk about it?”

Severa curls her hands into a fist. “Uh, pass. Sorry.”

Maribelle watches her, silent, for a long minute, until she makes a note on her clipboard. 

Severa tunes out most of the kids talking - it’s not that she doesn’t care, it’s that she  _ can’t _ care. She can’t bring herself to give a shit about any of these stupid kids and their stupid problems. 

“Nah, you’re new. Would you like to speak?” Maribelle asks.

Severa folds her arms over her stomach and hugs herself tightly. So she did know her. From school, sort of the fringes of her friend circle. By which she means Morgan’s friend, and she knows Morgan. 

“Sure,” Nah says, taking a small spiral notebook out of her purse. She pages through it. “Um, hi, everyone. I’m Nah.”

There’s a round of awkward hellos that Severa doesn’t participate in. She’s watching Nah curiously. It’s weird to see her here. It’s like this was a separate bubble, something distinct from everyday life. There was a separation, and Nah being here made that veil thinner. Severa chewed on a thumbnail nervously.

“I, uh, my mom had me when she was really young.” Nah pauses. “...and I guess I was raised by my grandma? Or...like, the woman who adopted my mom.” She shrugs. “So it’s like...I don’t know. It’s kind of weird that my mom is more like a sibling, I guess, and sometimes it just feels...weird, to deal with that. I don’t know.” She twists the end of her pigtails nervously. “I feel like I’m...I don’t know, sometimes it feels like I’m more mature than my mom? Like…” she pauses, and the pause stretches out almost uncomfortably long. Severa coughs. 

“I feel like she got to like...go off and live her life, and she saddled me with all this stuff, y’know?” 

Maribelle nodded and took notes. “Do you mind sharing why you’re here now?”

Nah nodded. “Yeah.” She sighs and rubs her temples. “Tiki...er, that is, my guardian, said that I should come, because…” she shrugs. “I don’t know. She’s worried about me being depressed.”

“And what do you think about that?”

“I guess she’s right.”

Maribelle makes another note. “You guess?”

“She’s worried I spend too much time holed up in my room.”

Severa watches her curiously.

 

-

 

Severa wrings rainwater out of her hair and offers Nah a cigarette. She declines.

“You too, huh?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Severa takes a slow drag and exhales smoke into the rain. The clinic awning keeps them dry while they watch cars in the street. “Y’know. Fucked up family shit.”

Nah laughs. “I mean, it’s not as bad as all that.”

“You mean my shit?”

“Yeah, well…” Nah frowns and hugs herself, shivering. “I don’t know. I was in the foster system too, for awhile. It was pretty horrible.”

Severa lifts a cigarette in a mock toast. “Still got the scars.” She closes her eyes and takes another drag. “Honestly, fuck everything. How the fuck does this happen to fucking kids, huh? What’s the justice in that?”

“Living in a rural area,” Nah suggests. “Not a lot of money, a lot of stupidity.”

Severa snorts. “Yeah, maybe.” The rain patters against the awning, water against metal, a dull thud drowned out only by the sloshing of car tires through puddles. “Still...sucks, y’know.”

“Yeah.”

Severa taps out her cigarette and drops it out into a puddle before lighting another. “Hey, uh...sorry.”

Nah frowns. “For what?”

“For all that shit that happened to you. You didn’t deserve that.”

Nah looks at her curiously. 

Severa backpedals. “I mean, uh, y’know. Just. Group therapy sucks ass, and you can always talk to me if you want to.” She gives a humorless laugh, trying to dispel the awkwardness she had conjured. “My...uh, my parents say I should try to make more friends, so...if you want to hang out more, or whatever.”

Nah smiles. “Do we have to ride horses?”

“God, I hope not,” Severa coughs.

“How long have you been going to these?” 

Severa frowns and thinks about it. Too damn long isn’t the right answer, probably. “Uh...I guess ever since I got adopted. I started with just the individual sessions, and now I do the group thing once a month.”

“Does it help?”

“Define ‘help’.”

Nah sits on the cold concrete steps. “Do you feel any better?”

“I... “ Severa frowns down at her. She was asked that question a lot. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on how bad you feel now.”

Nah nods but says nothing. Severa sits at her side, the two of them under the clinic’s awning, watching the rain and the cars and the drifting of dark clouds across the sky. On the far side of the street, brick rowhouses stare back at them, empty windows and dim porchlights and rain flushed from gutters, washing dead leaves into the street like a river of orange. Severa coughs and puts out her cigarette when an attendant tells her to. 

Say’ri is the one who picks her up today, in her pickup truck, and Severa says goodbye to Nah and exchanges cellphone numbers before climbing up into the passenger’s seat. Say’ri is quiet on the ride home, content to listen to the rain and the soft music drifting from the radio, and Severa leans her forehead against the window and watches the town pass her by.

“Nah was there,” she says at last, breaking the stillness. 

“Oh?”

“Yeah, she, uh...I don’t know. Has some family stuff I guess.”

Say’ri nods and downshifts to change lanes. “Her adoptive mother and I are very close friends.”

Severa sits up. “W-wait, you knew that?”

“Sumia and I watched Nah, when she was very little. Before Cynthia got older and it became too much to handle, between the farm and our jobs.”

“What the hell?” Severa scowls. 

“You had only mentioned her in passing, I did not think you were close friends.”

“Yeah, well…” Severa cools off and leans against the window again. “I guess we are, maybe.”

“That’s good! Friends are a good thing to have.”

Severa hums in agreement and coughs into her elbow.

“You’ve been coughing a lot lately,” Say’ri remarks idly as they pull up to a red light. Severa stares past Say’ri, out the driver’s side window, to the umbrella-adorned pedestrians on the crosswalk. 

“Yeah. It’s the cold. Asthma, or whatever.” 

Say’ri nods but doesn’t push her. It’s a quiet ride home, accompanied by little but the roar of the engine and the thrum of raindrops on the metal roof, and it feels comforting when Severa sees the sign out front, the paddock fences, and the rolling fields turned to mud and dead leaves. She rolls down her window and closes her eyes, letting rain and wind ruffle her hair. It smells like autumn, like dead leaves and flooded gutters and the scent of damp horse, and the barn slowly comes into view. 

 

-

 

They finish the back porch the next day. Say’ri and Severa stand in the yard, staring quietly at the porch in the grey mid-afternoon light. Severa had been working since she got home from school, changing out of her school clothes and into ratty jeans, an old t-shirt of Cynthia’s, and her work boots, and she had started working even before Say’ri got home from work. She was kneeling on the porch, staining when Say’ri poked her head out the back door to check on her. 

She hated to admit it, but she felt okay when she worked. It was something methodical, something calming. It brought the same sense of peace she got turning the pages of a book, watching a cigarette burn down to ash - the slow movement of something as it nears and finally reaches completion. She cleared her mind, pulled a paint mask over her face to thin out the fumes, and spent her afternoon painting. 

Say’ri puts her hand on Severa’s shoulder and nods. 

Severa tugs her mask down to her neck and looks expectantly at Say’ri. “Do you like...I don’t know, smash a wine bottle on it?”

Say’ri laughs and claps her shoulder again. “No, no, just admire the handiwork.” Her smile is soft and she gently nudges Severa forwards. “You should be very proud of yourself. Something now exists where nothing did, because of you.”

“Because of  _ you _ ,” Severa corrects, pulling her mask over her head and setting it on the porch steps next to the half-empty can of wood stain. 

Say’ri shakes her head and walks up the porch steps to stand and rest her hands on the railing. “Just because you did not do it alone doesn’t mean you did not do it.”

Severa slumps against the railing at her side and stares out at the fields. The gold of autumn washed away in the deluge of cold winter rain, and now the fields lay a sickly brown, bordered in dead trees trying so desperately to cling to their last vestiges of color. Severa shrugs. 

Say’ri wraps her arm around her shoulders and squeezes lightly. “You worked very hard, for a very long time on this. You should be proud. I know that I am.” She sighs when Severa doesn’t respond and pulls back to give her space. “You used to scoff at the idea of helping out around the farm. Now you feed the horses every morning. You used to meet my requests to work on construction with anger and impatience, and now you have built something with your own two hands. You have made your home a better place.”

Severa nods. “Yeah, I guess.”

Say’ri tilts her head to the side. “Why are you so hesitant to reject praise?”

“I…” Severa stares at her. “I don’t know. I guess I just...I never had something to be proud of, y’know? Can I really be proud of something you made me do?”

“I don’t think I made you do it as much as you think I did,” Say’ri smiles. “I am proud of you, really and truly.” She pulls Severa into a tight hug, tucking her head under her chin. “You’ve come so far.” She pulls apart. “Now, would you like to help me finish th-”

“Nope!” Severa cries out, clamping her hands over her ears. “Nope, nope! It’s cold, it’s going to snow, I spent too long working on this to turn around and start something brand new.”

Say’ri laughs softly and nods. “Alright, dove. Could you please take these supplies up to the attic, then?”

Severa nods and dutifully picks up an armful of supplies. Some of them go to Say’ri’s workshop - the toolkit, the brushes, the paint rollers and trays, but some of the less-frequently-used tools were kept in storage in the attic space above the second floor. Severa carries a crate through the kitchen and up the stairs before dumping them in the hallway and reaching up to tug down the ladder up to the attic hatch. 

She hadn’t actually been in the attic before - she had no cause to, and no desire to go sticking her nose in such dark and cramped and cobwebby places. In the summer, the air conditioning didn’t reach, and the attic boiled, and in the winter it froze, with drafty air slipping through the hatch and into the hall, making Severa’s winter treks from her bedroom to the bathroom unbearably drafty. But now, in autumn, it’s almost pleasant. It retains more heat than outside and smells vaguely of mothballs and rain. She hauls up the crate of supplies behind her and drops it with a loud clatter on the attic floor. 

Severa coughs a lungful of dust and looks around. 

The attic is short, dimly lit by a bare lightbulb, with sloped ceilings studded with nails. The shingles, Severa assumes, and she takes a cautious step and reaches a finger towards the nails. 

“Ow,” she winces, accidentally drawing blood. Still sharp. She sticks her finger in her mouth and takes a step deeper into the attic. There are piles of cardboard boxes with hastily scribbled marker denoting their contents -  _ Cynthia Schoolwork, Halloween Costumes, Harvest Decorations, Solstice Decorations _ . Severa peels back the packing tape on a cardboard box without a label and finds it full of old toys. Cynthia’s things, probably, children’s toys long-since abandoned to the dust and silence of the attic. She pulls a book out of it and blows dust off the cover. An old school photo album. She drops it back in and slides the box back into the shadows with her boot. 

She steps over an old wooden chest and a few cardboard boxes with Valmese labels taped all over it. Say’ri’s stuff, probably. She kneels down and opens one of them. More books, mostly in Valmese, their pages worn and yellowed. She doesn’t quite know enough yet to understand their contents beyond what’s on the cover. She closes it up.

Tucked into the back corner of the attic is a dusty but elegantly carved loop of wood, with snapped strings dangling impotently from its length. A few of the strings are intact, and when Severa plucks one, the dissonant resonance sends dust scattering to the air. She coughs again. She wonders if Say’ri or Sumia can play the harp. Maybe both. Neither had in years, it seems. 

She kneels again, crouching over an old unlabeled box wrapped in fraying packing tape. The corners are bent in and weather-stained, brownish and murky even against the bending cardboard. She isn’t in the business of carrying a pocket knife anymore, so she digs a nail under the tape and tugs it. It comes free, bringing with it chunks of cardboard in an inelegant rip. She winces, shaking the tape off her hands and peeling open the cardboard flaps.

It’s more books. God, these nerds sure did read a lot. 

She frowns and picks through them slowly. Older books, this time, dustier and yellowed, photographs in black and white rather than color. Hardcover bound volumes with cracked spines and weathered covers. She picks one out and laughs.

It’s a university photo album. She pages through it. Among the pictures of students listed in alphabetical order are pictures of school events, clubs, intramurals. She frowns. Buried in the back pages, among the pictures of sports teams and academic events, there’s a picture from a book club.

There are three young girls sitting together in a library, smiling at the camera, books open on the table in front of them. Even then Say’ri looks the same, angular jaw and dark, straight hair, without a trace of the grey that graces her locks now. She’s dressed differently, in a leather jacket and jeans, and she’s got a hand over the cover of her book, obscuring the title. She’s the only one not smiling. Sumia is there too, or at least, Severa assumes it’s her. She’s got the same round face, curls of light hair, a headband keeping the coils from falling into her face. 

Severa almost drops the book. Between them, smiling softly, is another girl. Even though the photo is black and white, she can tell her hair is red, and her eyes are sparkling over her slightly blushing cheeks, like she’s embarrassed. Severa puts a finger against the picture delicately, tracing the woman’s outline, trailing her finger down to the caption.  _ Ferox University LGBT Book Club: Sumia Featherfoil, Cordelia Tiamo, and Chon’sin exchange student Say’ri Fujiwara. _

Severa stares at the picture. She drops the book on the ground, open to the photograph, and kneels over the cardboard box. She starts digging, her heart pounding, unsure what she’s even looking for. If anything at all. She tosses books over her shoulder, pamphlets for two-decades-past events, desperately looking for - well, she’ll know it when she sees it.

She pulls a photo album out of the book, a bound hardcover book with photographs lovingly mounted on the heavy pages. She flips through it with wild abandon. Old pictures of some people she’s never met and places she’s never been. Pictures from vacations to places she’d probably never go. Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. She throws it over her shoulder. 

There’s another photo album, and she almost tears the pages flipping through it. And then her heart stops. 

It’s the three of them, together again. They’re smiling and laughing, and Cordelia is behind Sumia and Say’ri, her smile a little less bright. She peels the photo out of its mounting and sets it in the school yearbook to continue her search. Pictures of Other things, irrelevant things. Family gatherings, a lot of pictures of Say’ri and some older guy with greying hair. She tears more photos from the book, portraits of her mother dressed up for school dances, the everpresent third wheel to Sumia and Say’ri. Cordelia rolling her eyes at the photographer snapping candid shots of her at the beach, photos of Cordelia with her nose in a book, taken from across the room. 

Photographs of a wedding - beautiful dresses, Say’ri in a slick fitted suit, the sun cutting like liquid gold through tree leaves, a ranch wreathed in the colors of autumn and bouquets of white flowers. Cordelia was their maid of honor. 

Pictures from a hospital. Sumia is in bed, holding a baby - Cynthia, Severa can assume - and at her side, smiling proudly, is Say’ri. Severa can see the photographer in the reflection of the hospital window, illuminated by a flash of light. She adds it to the pile. 

And then Severa turns a page. There’s another photograph, a younger and less weathered Say’ri in a leather jacket with her arm around Cordelia. In Cordelia’s arms, a pudgy little baby swaddled in cloth.

Severa’s hands shake. She blinks tears from her eyes, knowing that she’s probably dripping on the photo album, but she doesn’t care. She turns the pages slower, trying to drink in the details of the photographs, trying to glean as much as she can from the snapshots of memories. 

There’s a picture of Cordelia holding a sleeping baby to her shoulder, trying to shush the photographer. There’s a picture of Cynthia and the other child in diapers on a living room floor, a sleeping Cordelia splayed out behind them. 

Severa knows who the other child is.

She picks out a photograph set against a bright blue sky. The child is there, sitting on Sumia’ shoulders, arms clinging desperately to her with all the fear tiny fingers and few years can muster. 

Severa lifts a shaking fist to her eyes and wipes them before delicately setting the photo album down. She stares at her pile of torn paper, of photos ripped from books detailing the life of the young woman with bright red hair. She closes her eyes.

 

-

 

Sumia can hear the crying even from downstairs. She drops what she’s doing and clambers up the stairs, and the ladder to the attic, trying to keep herself from panicking. 

“Severa? Severa, what’s wrong?” she emerges from the attic trapdoor, Say’ri hot on her heels. 

“Did she hit her head on the nails?” Say’ri asks. “I had been meaning to hammer those in, but…”

“Severa?” Sumia calls out into the dim light of the attic. 

Severa is curled up in the back corner, arms wrapped around herself, face against the open book, weeping. She doesn’t stop crying, even as Sumia touches her softly and shifts to lay her head in her lap. 

“Shh, it’s okay,” Sumia says, combing her hands through Severa’s hair. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

Severa shakes her head and rolls over, curling up tighter, coiling like a spring. She can’t even form words, can’t reach anything past her spasmic, wracking sobs. Her inhales are short and staccato, cutting off her wails.

“Shh, just breathe. Just breathe.”

Severa reaches her arms up and clamps them around her head, writhing in a spastic, pained tantrum. 

It takes the combined effort of Sumia and Say’ri to calm her down, from her fetal position on the attic floor to propped up against a stack of boxes, half-embrace and half-supported on either side. She hugs her knees close to her chest and cries until her lungs give out and her eyes are red and swollen. She gasps stuttering breaths into her knees as Say’ri neatens up the pile of discarded pictures and pages through the photo albums, looking for pictures Severa might have missed in her haste while Sumia presses her lips to Severa’s brow and whispers calm reassurances in her ear. 

“I met Sumia and your mother at university,” Say’ri explains in a calm voice, sorting through the papers. She laughs, remembering. “Sumia and your mother were the only two members of the book club, and Sumia was having trouble reaching a book on the top shelf. She would have fallen, had I not been there to catch her, and your mother was not far behind.” Say’ri holds the yearbook photo up in front of Severa’s puffy eyes. “We were inseparable after that.”

Sumia kisses Severa’s head again and strokes her hair. “Your mother and I had been friends since, oh, gosh, high school maybe? Classmates, then university.” Sumia laughs. “I think I never would have met Say’ri if she hadn’t convinced me to make a book club with her. I was shy,” she explains, “but she thought it’d be a good way to make friends.” 

Severa nods and sniffles.

“I loved your mother dearly,” Sumia says, her voice suddenly somber. “We both did. It was a shame what happened, and something that pains me to think about.”

“I don’t understand,” Severa says hoarsely. “Why...why weren’t you there? Why didn’t you help me?” She breaks again, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“There is no excuse,” Say’ri nods. “We knew that you existed, but we had no way to find you. No way of contacting you, after your mother…” she swallows. “After she passed.”

“You could have tried harder!” Severa screams, suddenly angry, her fingers turning to clawing fists at her knees. “Why didn’t you help me!?” She coughs and blinks, her vision blurry through her tears. “I suh-suffered so much for nothing!” She balls her hands into fists and slammed them against her knees. Her injured wrist sparks with a blast of pain down her arms and she cries harder. “It’s not fair! It’s not f-fucking fair!” She pushes herself away from Sumia and wraps her arms around herself. 

“It’s not fair,” Say’ri agrees, holding out an arm to stop Sumia from approaching Severa again. “And there’s no apology in the world that can make up for that.” She purses her lips and pauses, watching Severa’s anger flicker and burn as she curls up on the floor. “Your mother left with your father not long after you were born. They were never married, as far as I know, and...we fell out of contact.” She sighs. “We had assumed your father would be caring for you. We didn’t realize that…” 

“That I was alone,” Severa finishes weakly, pushing herself up from the floor. “That I was alone, and that piece of shit abandoned us.” She lashes out a fist and punches a box. Her wrist makes a sickening crack and she gasps out in pain, clutching it to her chest. 

“You’re hurting yourself,” Sumia says, moving forward to tug her into an embrace.

“I fucking know,” Severa replies, unable to muster anger over her pain. “I fucking know that.”

“Shh,” Sumia whispers, cradling her. 

“You could have helped me…” Severa cries into her shoulder. “I could have been happy…”

Sumia and Say’ri hold her tightly and whisper soft reassurances into her ear.

 

-

 

The grey light of rainy autumn turns to a cold brown-tinged blue, of clear skies and frost on the fields, of exhales marked by crystallization of breath. The rain stops, for a bit, and Severa spends an afternoon raking the leaves from the driveway, pushing them into a pile on the side of the road. 

School seems interminably slow, each day bleeding into the next in an endless succession of half-completed assignments and lonely lunch periods.

She almost has a friend in Nah, though the latter seems hesitant to engage with Severa during the school day. Without Morgan as a bridge, it’s as Severa had thought - a wall of separation between their lives as students and their lives outside. 

Sometimes, on weekends, they stop for lunch together after meetings. It’s nice, Severa thinks, to have what she’d almost consider a friend. Nah is a little quiet, a little reserved, and a lot of a dork, but Severa likes her well enough. 

“You can leave your jacket by the door,” Nah explains, gesturing Severa through the front door. “Tiki won’t be home until later tonight, so we’re pretty much free to do whatever. Uh, no smoking though.”

Severa nods and slips her leather jacket off her shoulders to hang up on a coathook in the anteroom. 

Nah kneels to untie the laces on her knee-high boots. “Are you okay? You seem a little...spacey.”

“Hm? Yeah,” Severa says noncommittally. She knocks the mud off her combat boots before prying them off by the heel. “Sorry.”

“Uh, I can show you around, I guess,” Nah says walking into the hallway. I try not to mess with my mom’s stuff or anything, but I can give you the tour.”

Severa is glad that Nah’s so small and quiet - it’s less weird, somehow, the tension between them. The air of two people trying very hard to make a connection where none would otherwise exist. The house makes her seem even smaller - the doorways are ornate carved wood, the floors are paneled, the furniture all seems like antiques more than a place someone would actually live. Nah seems out of place, too. 

“This is the living room,” she points. It’s a big room with a broad window looking out past the driveway and towards town. It’s a nice day out, sunny and cold.

“The kitchen is that way,” Nah continues. “But, uh, I guess I spend most of my time in my room.”

Her room is something that seems a little more fitting to her, a smallish space lined with bookshelves packed tight with all sorts of books, a neatly made bed pushed to one wall, and a desk with a large, comfortable-looking chair pushed to the other. 

“You can, uh, sit, if you want.” Nah gestures to the bed. 

It’s weird. It’s tense. Severa hates it. She wishes she had declined Nah’s request to hang out, after therapy of all goddamn things. Maybe the tense discomfort lingered. 

“You okay?” Nah asks again, sitting at her desk. There’s a big computer behind her, a big slick black thing with two massive displays and a silver tower. Severa doesn’t know enough about computers to get it. 

“I don’t know,” Severa slumps back on her hands. 

“Do you want to talk about what happened? That stuff you mentioned, with the pictures of your mom and stuff?”

“Nope.”

Nah nods. “Do you want to watch me play Hyper Defense Grid?”

“Absolutely yes,” Severa breathes a sigh of relief. Anything, literally anything to dispel the tension. 

“Uh, I’ll go get another chair I guess.” Nah hits the power button on her computer and slips out of her chair and into the hallway. She comes back a few minutes later, grunting and struggling to carry a heavy wooden chair through the narrow doorway. 

Severa scrambles up from the bed to help her rotate it through the door. 

They scoot it across the carpet to sit at an angle towards the dual monitors and Nah scrambles back into her chair. Like everything else in the house, it seems a little too big for her - a big cushy desk chair with her nestled back into it, tapping away on her keyboard. Severa rests her hands in her lap and watches.

“So how does it work?” she asks, after a few confused minutes. 

“It’s a strategy game,” Nah explains, tapping the spacebar. “See, you click these things here, and then try to get your guys to kill all the other guys.”

“Why are you tapping the keyboard?”

Nah squints at her curiously. “Like...keyboard shortcuts? Have you never played a video game?”

Severa shrugs and scoots closer. “Why are those guys red?”

“They’ve got a status debuff that…” Nah trails off. She sighs. “Do you want to play too?”

“You’ve only got one computer.”

“Yeah, but I have dual monitors and I can hook up my laptop…” She waves her hand. “It’s not important. You probably wouldn’t get it. Do you want to play or not?”

Severa has never touched a video game in her life. Lucina had them and played quite a bit, usually stuff on her phone when she was fidgety and restless while in line for a movie or on a car trip. Severa had never quite gotten the appeal, but that might have been that no one had properly introduced her.

She leans forward and taps the keyboard on the laptop Nah provided her. “So your guys are the little red ones on my screen, but the blue ones on your screen.”

Nah nods. “Yeah. So you try to manage your resources there in the corner while keeping your units alive and fighting mine. You can like, attack my walls and buildings and stuff, like this.”

“H-hey!” Severa cries out, frantically clicking. “Not fair, I didn’t know you can do that!”

Nah cracks a smile as a victory screen flashes across her monitor. 

“Hey, uh, are you hungry?” Severa sits up straighter. 

Nah shrugs and pecks at her keyboard.

“Sumia, uh, says I have to eat regularly so I can take my pills.”

“Huh.”

“So...is it okay if I go make a sandwich or something?”

“Go ahead.” 

“Is it okay if I step outside for a smoke?”

“Mhm.”

 

-

 

“I don’t know,” Severa says through a mouthful of bread and peanut butter. “I think finding those photo albums kinda fucked me up, y’know?” 

Nah shrugs noncommittally.

"Like, I keep thinking about it. Seeing myself as a kid, I guess. I don’t know.” Severa shovels half a sandwich into her mouth. “Waith how dith you do thath?”

“When you fill up the gauge on the side of the screen, you get a guaranteed critical hit.”

Severa swallows. “Oh, fuck, cool.”

The sit in silence again, for awhile, the stillness punctuated by the tap of keys and the clicks of mice, bleeps and music floating through the afternoon air. Rain patters against Nah’s window, grey and streaky in the murky light. Severa curses under her breath periodically. 

She likes it, whatever it is. She had never had a chance to play games, other than when she and her mom used to sit in front of the TV together and play...something. Severa couldn’t remember the game, just her mother’s face, glowing in the television light. 

But this is way different - it’s flashy and complex, and Severa finds herself poring over stat sheets and comparing unit analyses, and she doesn’t even notice when her head starts aching from the strain and the brightness of the screen. 

There’s the sound of motion from downstairs, the click and swing of the front door, and Nah looks up. “That’s Tiki, probably.”

“She knows I’m here, right?” 

Nah nods. “Yeah. I should probably go say hi.” 

Severa and Nah stand on the staircase and Nah sticks her face through the bannister. “Hey, Tiki. Severa and I are playing some video games, if that’s okay.”

Tiki brushes rain from her hair and smiles upwards. “Oh, hello, Severa! It’s nice to see you.” She slips her grey sportcoat from her shoulders and hangs it by the door. “Say’ri says hello.” 

Severa nods. “Yeah, I thought she might.”

“She asked me to make sure you took your pills.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Severa sighs and leans against the bannister railing, towering over Nah. “I have a timer so I don’t forget.”

“Good!” Tiki smiles. “She’d never let me hear the end of it if I let you forget. Will you be staying for dinner?”  

  
  


-

  
  


Severa lays in bed, inches from the edge. Sumia is at her side, Say’ri beyond her. 

She wipes tears from her eyes, angry that she can’t sleep. Can’t stop thinking about what might have been. What different world it could be if she had had a family, loving parents, anything but the cruel indifference of a system that left her beaten and broken. She rolls over and faces the wall.

Behind her, Sumia snores softly. 

Eighteen years old and still sleeping with her mommy, like a fucking child. She wraps her arms around herself and sniffles. She knows it’s pointless to even try to sleep. But it’s warm under the covers, and she’d rather be here than alone in the cold silence of her own room. 

She slides out of bed and pads down the hall to the restroom to splash water on her face. She looks tired in the mirror, bags under her eyes just defining the red-rimmed eyes and tearstained cheeks. She had mastered the art of silent crying, back when she had to share a bunk at the orphanage, before she had her own room, and now it enabled her to get her breakdowns out without waking Cynthia, or Lucina, or whomever she was sharing space with. 

She rinses her face with a cold cloth and stumbles back down the hall. 

She’s almost at the door frame when the coughing begins. She coughs into her fist in hacking spasms, and she can feel the wet against her fingers. Usually she can stop herself after a few, but not tonight, and she needs to brace herself against the doorframe while lurching. Her muscles tense and her lungs burn and she falls to her knees in the hallway. 

She braces herself with both hands against the carpet and spits the thick bitter red that paints her lips. It hurts. It hurts so goddamn much, like her body’s on fire, like her lungs are spilling out her mouth in thick lurches of copper. She blinks tears and tries bracing a hand against her lips to stop herself from coughing up more onto the carpet. Her wrist brace is rough against her lips.

She can hear footsteps, somewhere, concerned whispers. Her name, said with urgency. She blinks as the bedroom light turns on and she sees someone stepping towards her. She coughs again and looks up, teary-eyed. “I…” she braces herself again. “I think I’m sick.”


	5. Autumn: End

Severa had never been to the beach before. She bounces excitedly against her seat, fingers prodding at the switch to roll the windows down. The air smells like salt and wind, and the cry of gulls pierces through the wind. In the front seat, there is laughter.

“See that, honey?” the woman leans forward against the steering wheel. “That’s the sea.”

“It’s so big!” she stares out the window at the blue spreading before them, glittering in the midday sun. It seems like it’s blue everywhere - the sea stretching out to the horizon, where it meets the blue of the sky and towers over them, bright and cloudless. “Mama, can we swim in it?”

“Not yet,” Cordelia smiles, plucking a pair of sunglasses from the rear-view mirror. She slips them on with one hand, the other gently guiding the steering wheel. “We’ve still got a bit of a drive ahead of us.”

“Aw,” Severa pouts.

Cordelia pulls the car down narrow streets, past colorful beach houses on stilts, past tourist traps plastered with surfboards and flowers and wave decals, past firework stands and fish stalls and Severa takes it all in with the sponginess of a nine-year-old’s curiosity, gazing with wonder at colorful kites flapping in the breeze and bikers in board shorts and tank-tops passing them by. There are boats in the harbor, majestic and white like alabaster models set in a pool. Cordelia chides her for putting her thumb in her mouth.

Their beach house is a small one, a tiny rental cottage Cordelia managed to snag for bargain prices after the previous renters had dropped out. She could never have afforded it otherwise, between medical bills, childcare fees, and car payments. But Severa didn’t know any of that, all she saw was a cottage on the sea with a hammock on the porch and a window that looked out on the bay and a single bedroom decorated with tacky oil paintings of seashells. The wallpaper is yellow and the furniture is that particular fake kind of plasticky wicker that seems endemic to seaside towns. Cordelia helps her unpack her little suitcase and unfold her bathing suit and helps her dress.

Severa has never been to the beach, but she’s never been on any vacation before. She holds her mother’s hand as they walk down to the water, bare feet against hot sand, passing a volleyball game and two children fussing over a sandcastle and blankets and umbrellas and so much color that Severa can barely take it all in. She holds Cordelia’s hand tightly, almost afraid that if she lets go, she’ll be blown off by the bay winds.

The water is cold against her feet, and she yelps.

Cordelia laughs, her eyes sparkling with mirth as she picks up Severa by the arms and slowly pushes her forward into the water. “See? It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

Cordelia’s wearing a new swimsuit she got just for this trip, a red and frilly set that Severa assured her was just the cutest thing. Severa wanted something similar, but Cordelia knew she couldn’t be trusted to put on sunblock enough, so she had to wear a one-piece. She flops into the water with a giggle and a splash, sticking her head up from the sea as a wave passes over her.

Cordelia laughs, too, and plunges in behind her.

Severa isn’t very good at swimming, but Cordelia supports her and holds on tight as waves lap at their skin. She’s small and contains an eagerness that supplants any mere lack of skill, and quickly breaks free of her mother’s grip to doggy-paddle against the foaming waves.

Cordelia stands up and wrings water from her hair. “Be careful, honey!”

A wave slaps into the side of Severa’s face, and suddenly it’s dark.

 

-

 

Severa tastes blood and salt and plastic. Something is cold on her lips, a tight band around her head, pressure, bright lights. She can’t see, but it doesn’t matter. Voices around her are muffled, frantic but distant, fading in and out like a radio played through a car just on the edge of range. Her eyes slip shut, plunging her into darkness.

 

-

 

They’re there for a week in total, and Severa didn’t know it was possible to be so in love with a place. She wakes early to sit and watch the morning sun rise over the waves, cresting the horizon and spilling through the window in rays of white light, and she excitedly crawls back into bed to shake her mother and ask if it’s time to get up yet. They walk to the convenience store down the block for breakfast every morning - Cordelia gets a coffee for herself and a juice for her daughter and they split a hot, fresh doughnut.

Cordelia helps Severa change and put on sunblock, and they walk down to the beach together, hand in hand, an umbrella and blanket slung over Cordelia’s shoulder. Severa plays in the sand while Cordelia pages through books, weathered old paperbacks with cracked spines and yellowed pages. They swim, for as long as Severa’s little arms can carry her, and Cordelia carries her in her arms back up to their rental and lays her down in the hammock and rocks her to sleep.

Severa likes the fishing piers. She doesn’t like fishing, but she likes to stare down at the cracks in the boards, at the waves pounding into the support pillars dozens of feet below. The smell of fish and salt and the rocking of the waves, and Cordelia nervously holds her hand and keeps her from getting too close to the railings.

In the evenings, when the hot sun sinks behind the rows of houses and shops, the lights come on - the bright neon strip of the boardwalk, the pier decorated with rainbows of color and brightness, a ferris wheel spinning it’s neon circles into the endless black night. They take walks on the beach at night, Severa sitting on Cordelia’s shoulders and they stare up at the stars, finally visible away from the light pollution of the cities. Cordelia points out the stars that she knows, and the constellations, and Severa stares wide-eyed at the majesty of the cosmos projected before her on the hazy violet sky above the black sea. And Cordelia stands in the dark surf, letting the tide lap at her ankles.

And Severa crawls into bed at the end of each day, tired and windswept and sunburnt and exhausted but so in love with the world around her, with the sand and the sun and the sea and her mother’s arms hold her tight as she drifts off to sleep.

 

-

 

There’s a woman standing over her when Severa’s eyes crack open. She still tastes rust on her tongue, and she smells plastic and sterile air, and something presses into the skin of her cheeks. Her tongue is thick in her mouth as she forms the word.

“M...Mama?”

“Shh, it’s okay,” comes the soft, muted voice. “I’m here, Severa.”

Severa realizes the hand she’s staring at is her own, fingers twined with another. There’s something stuck in her arm, and she frowns at it.

The pieces aren’t coming together, not in any meaningful way. She blinks at the woman sitting on her bed, her long hair and tall frame, and she squeezes her hand. “M-Mama, where…” she blinks again. There’s an ache inside her, something dull and blunt and painful. She feels like something is trapped in her throat, something is clamped over her mouth. She tries rotating her head.

“Shh,” the voice soothes again. “It’s okay. Just rest.”

Rest. That sounds really nice. Severa slumps back against something soft and the world is blackness.

 

-

 

It’s still dark when she wakes. Or maybe it’s dark again. She lifts a hand to rub her eyes and is pleasantly surprised to find her limbs responsive. There’s still something hard and plastic on her face, and by stumbling her fingers across her features she manages to thread her fingers under the lip of the oxygen mask and tug. It won’t come loose and she sighs.

As her eyes adjust to the dark, she peers around the room. The hallway lights are on but dim, casting yellow light through the window set into the door, but all around her on the floor are bodies. She pushes herself up and backwards, grimacing as pain dances along her chest.

Lucina is asleep in the chair by the window, her head resting on Cynthia’s shoulder. She’s also asleep, her head in turn resting on Lucina’s. Morgan is sprawled out on the tile floor, the dim light of his phone illuminating his face and his active eyes. Sumia and Say’ri sit against the far wall, Sumia asleep in Say’ri’s lap and Say’ri’s eyes are closed but her hands are active, stroking Sumia’s hair. Nah is in the corner, a game console between her hands, her thumbs tapping buttons idly.

Severa bites back a sob.

She pushes herself back up, slowly, head lolling, eyes drooping shut.

Lucina’s head thunks against the window and she starts awake, blinking in the darkness. She gets up slowly, silently, letting Cynthia’s head droop slowly, carefully stepping around Morgan to bend over Severa’s bed. She holds herself nervously, watching Severa rest in the dim light.

Severa opens her eyes weakly and blinks at her.

“Sev?” Lucina whispers, stepping closer to the bed. “Oh, god, Severa…”

“H-hey,” Severa says, her voice hoarse and her throat burning. She coughs weakly into her oxygen mask.

“Are you okay?” Lucina bends over the bed and takes Severa’s cheek in her hand, brushing her tangled, sweaty bangs from her eyes. She rubs a thumb over Severa’s cheek, wiping tears.

Severa shakes her head slowly. “I don’t…”

“I came as soon as I heard,” Lucina says in a hushed tone. “Kjelle’s here too, and my parents.” She slips her hand over Severa’s. “We’re all so worried about you.”

Severa shifts, making room for Lucina to sit on the side of the bed. She squeezes Lucina’s hand back, but her fingers are weak. “Can you…” Severa lifts her bedsheet. “Can you just h-hold me?”

Lucina nods and crawls into the hospital bed at her side, to a creak of metal and plastic, and she wraps her arms around Severa and pulls her face against her own. “I’m here,” she whispers, pressing her lips to Severa’s forehead. She tastes like sweat. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Severa nods and presses her face to the crook of Lucina’s neck, desperately. She wraps her arm around Lucina and squeezes her tightly. “I’m s-scared,” she says, gasping. Tears drip down her cheeks. “I’m s-so scared.” Her voice hitches.

“It’s okay,” Lucina kisses softly, brushing her lips against her eyes, kissing the tears away. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Severa shakes her head, burrowing deeper into Lucina’s arms, shaky breaths wracking her chest. “I d-don’t…” she stammers. “I d-don’t want to die.” She takes a sharp inhale and a sob slips out.

Lucina shifts onto her side, pulling Severa closer, pressing her lips to Severa’s brow and her eyes before pressing their foreheads together. “I promise,” she says softly. “I promise, we’re all going to be with you. Every step of the way.”

Severa reaches a shaking hand up, hooking her finger under the lip of her oxygen mask, pulling it down to her neck. She presses her lips against Lucina’s, a tender, soft kiss that’s returned with Lucina’s enthusiasm. They keep their lips pressed together, Severa breathing slowly and carefully, her chest rising and falling, cradled in Lucina’s arms. Lucina kisses her back, shifting her arm to snag the back of Severa’s head and tug her closer, to kiss her more deeply. Lucina kisses the corner of her lips before catching her mouth in her own, and Severa’s heaving chest catches and she lets a gasp slip into Lucina’s mouth.

“You know other people are in here, right?” Nah hisses from the corner of the room.

Lucina almost falls out of the hospital bed in surprise and Severa’s breath catches, lurching her into a hacking cough.

And the room is a flurry of activity. Cynthia bolts upright, almost stumbling over Morgan as she launches herself towards the bed. “Severa, oh my gosh, are you okay!”

Severa blushes in the darkness and the room is flushed in blinding white light. Someone must have hit the lightswitch, because suddenly everything is very bright and very loud.

“Severa, are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need anything?” Cynthia stammers.

Sumia gently pushes her aside and presses a hand to Severa’s forehead. “Are you feeling alright? I’m going to fetch a nurse.”

“Shit, I was sure you were dead,” Morgan says, genuinely impressed.

Severa instinctively winces as the lights flash on and off. Say’ri stands at the door, the lightswitch between her fingers. “Give her some space, everyone, please.”

Lucina sheepishly slips out of the bed and falls into the back of the room at Cynthia’s side.

Say’ri pads forward and stands over Severa, making her wince and stare guiltily at the foot of her bed. Say’ri gently takes the oxygen mask from Severa’s neck and adjusts it, pulling it back up around her mouth and nose, checking the tightness. “Is that okay?”

Severa nods.

Say’ri brushes her bangs from her face and looks over her. “You should be resting, Severa.”

“S-sorry,” Severa says quietly.

Say’ri shifts and tugs her into a tight, desperate embrace. Severa had never known her to seem anything but cool and collected in all the time she had known her, but her hug was fearful and relieved. “I love you very much, Severa.”

“I love you too.”

 

-

 

Severa is sleeping again when the nurse comes back in to check her vitals. She’s dimly aware of the feeling of needles sticking into her skin, taking blood samples to test. All the while, Lucina sits in the corner chair, nervous, always there when Severa wakes. Sometimes she’s asleep, too, and sometimes awake, and there’s a constant rotation of motion as other visitors come in. Chrom brings Lucina coffee and a bag of chips, at some point, and Say’ri returns with a blanket to drape over Sumia’s legs. The sun slowly rises, creeping through the lower edges of the window and drawing a thin line of light across the far wall.

She can hear hushed tones, whispers, serious voices using big words she doesn’t quite understand, but all the while, when she cracks her eyes, she sees her family with her. She leans her head back against the headboard and breathes steadily. It hurts but only dimly, distantly, and only on inhales. Her head hurts, too, and that she can feel every time she adjusts or is adjusted. She wishes Lucina could come closer, twine their hands together.

It hurts so much when she awakens clearly. She can still feel the oxygen mask pressed to her face, and her arm is dotted with adhesive bandages where blood has been drawn. Everything aches. Her head, her legs, her chest. Her stomach churns, angry and nauseous, and it takes all her effort to not start dry-heaving into her mask.

Lucina is still there, in the corner, a book on her lap, and Sumia is by the bed, softly stroking Severa’s long hair.

Say’ri stands in the doorway, speaking in hushed voices to someone in the hallway before coming in to sit at the foot of Severa’s bed.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, resting a comforting hand on Severa’s leg.

“Like dogshit,” Severa rasps. She weakly pushes herself up to sit.

Sumia and Say’ri make eye contact.

“So what’s the,” Severa stops to press a hand to her chest. “The prognosis, doc? Dead in a m-month?”

Sumia tries speaking first, pursing her lips before faltering and standing at Say’ri’s side, twining a hand in hers. In the corner, Lucina sits up straighter.

Say’ri wets her lips. “Ah, well.” She smiles. “There’s good news and bad news.”

Severa frowns. “Just tell me I’m dying or whatever.”

Say’ri takes a deep breath and sighs. “You’ve inherited the same disease that your mother carried and eventually succumbed to. It’s a very rare blood disease, and the doctors have said that your…” she purses her lips. “Lifestyle choices have made symptoms manifest earlier in you than they did in your mother.”

Severa swallows. She had been trying to mask it, but it still hurt to hear. She closes her eyes and clenches her teeth.

She had been preparing to hear this all her life. Ever since she realized what had happened to her mother, ever since she realized that she was at risk too. But it didn’t make it easier, being finally confronted with it. She lets out a stifled gasp and tears leak from her closed eyes.

A soft hand threads into hers and squeezes softly. “It’s okay,” comes Sumia’s voice. “Shh, it’s okay.”

Severa nods, frantically and shakily.

“There’s good news, though,” Say’ri continues. “The doctors say that your prognosis is quite good, and they expect that with a proper course of treatment, your symptoms can be managed.”

“Wh..what?” Severa opens her eyes and wipes them with her wrist.

Say’ri takes her other hand. “Because you’re so young, they expect that you can fight it with new treatments.”

“Wh…” Severa repeats herself, like it hasn’t quite clicked in her mind. “What?”

Say’ri blinks, and Severa realizes that she’s crying, too. Softly, silently, but a tear pools in the corner of her eyes and drips slowly down her cheek. She smiles and squeezes Severa’s hand. “You can fight it, Severa.”

Severa blinks and shakes her head. “N-no, no, that’s not…” she chokes out a sob. “No, that’s not right. I’m…” Her breath hitches and she breaks into a sob. She balls up Say’ri’s shirt and frantically drags her towards her, bursting into a sob that explodes with anger. “No, fucking no! That’s not…” She shakes her head and holds Say’ri by her shirt, as if trying to hold her accountable. “That’s not right!” She cries. “I’m...I’m not supposed to…” she falters and breaks when Say’ri wraps her arms around her and tugs her close. “I’m supposed to die!” she sputters into her shirt. “I…” And she sobs, mouth forming incoherent shapes and syllables as she sobs into Say’ri’s shirt.

She can feel Say’ri’s arms around her, and another set, warm and comforting on her body that hurts so very much. Say’ri presses a kiss to her brow and touches their foreheads together. “It’s okay, dove.”

Severa shakes her head and lashes out, trying to push them off her, but the motion hurts and she buckles, curling into a ball on her hospital bed and sobbing.

“Just go away!” she screams, pounding her fist into her pillow. “L-leave me alone!”

 

-

 

“I thought she would be happy,” Sumia says softly.

“It must be very hard,” Say’ri says, rubbing her shoulders. They stand in the hallway outside Severa’s room, where they can still hear the faint sounds of her pain leaking through her gasping sobs.

Sumia wipes her eyes. “I was so scared for her.”

“I as well,” Say’ri says, kissing her softly. She takes Sumia’s cheeks in her hands, comfortingly, firmly, and brushes her lips along Sumia’s. “It will take some time for her to process it.” She tucks Sumia’s face into the crook of her neck. “I think for now, giving her the space she needs might be best.”

Sumia nods and sniffles.

“Besides,” Say’ri smiles, pulling apart but wrapping her hand around Sumia’s. “She has Lucina with her.”

The hospital waiting room is already a bustle of motion in the morning, with people coming and going and the receptionist desk buzzing with ringing phones and chattering secretaries. Say’ri leads Cynthia by the hand to where their particular corner is staked out, a pile of sleeping bodies and jackets strewn about as blankets and bunched up like pillows. Say’ri deposits Sumia beside a sleep-deprived Robin with bags under her eyes and an empty paper coffee cup in her hands before stopping to get her own coffee.

She sips it as she takes a headcount.

Chrom, Robin, Cynthia, Sumia, Kjelle...she frowns into the lip of her cup. “Cynthia, where are Nah and Morgan?”

“Oh, Morgan wanted to go pick up some breakfast so we sent them down the road to the gas station to get donuts and stuff,” Cynthia perks up. She’s got a smile on her face but her eyes are weary and her voice is hoarse, a night’s worry condensed into a sheepish, sleepy smile as she leans against Kjelle’s shoulder. Kjelle seems no worse for wear, sifting through her backpack for what appears to be a breakfast of energy bars and sports drinks. She offers half of one to Cynthia, who takes a sleepy bite without taking the bar from Kjelle’s hands.

“How are you doing?” Robin asks as Say’ri sits across from her.

“Nervous,” Say’ri replies, slipping her hand into Sumia’s. “It’s been a long night.”

“Have you gotten any sleep?”

Say’ri shakes her head and Robin nods. “We woke up to Lucina banging on the front door, telling us we needed to take her to the hospital. Really gave us a good scare.”

“Have the doctors said anything?” Chrom speaks up.

Say’ri nods and relays the information they had been given while Nah and Morgan shuffled back into their designated zone. “We’re very fortunate that there are treatment options available.”

“Well, it helps to have the Fujiwara name to throw around,” Chrom remarks, leaning back in his chair and draping an arm over his wife’s shoulders.

Say’ri gives a sort of half-smile into her coffee. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” She glances at her own wife, soundly sleeping in the chair at her side. “I would do more, if I could. Take her to the best doctors in the state, pay for any tests, any medication.”

“You really care about her a lot,” Robin says. “I’m glad.”

“She must not have broken any of their things yet,” Chrom jokes, and Robin smacks him lightly.

“What my husband means is, we know she can be...a handful to have in the house. We’re so thankful that she’s found a place to belong, at long last.”

“Me too,” Cynthia says sleepily, opening her eyes. “I love having a...sis….snzzz….” Her head lands with a thunk on Kjelle’s shoulder.

Say’ri, Chrom, and Robin all laugh softly.

Say’ri sets her coffee down and brushes a lock of Sumia’s hair from her sleeping face. “We’ve all be so happy with Severa in the house.”

“Has she been…” Robin purses her lips. “Y’know...okay?”

“She’s been having trouble adjusting,” Say’ri admits. “It was easier when your daughter was around, but she’s making friends. She’s been spending a lot of time at Nah’s house.”

“She sucks at Lords of the Underfell,” Nah says, looking up from her game. “But I like spending time with her.”

“Ah, well, we’re well acquainted with her,” Chrom makes a smug face at his son and gently pats his shoulder.

“Ugh, dad, shut up!” Morgan protests through a mouthful of breakfast.

Nah blushes and tucks herself deeper into her chair, hiding behind her game.

Robin laughs softly and swats her husband again. “Oh, hush, you.”

“Oh, Nah,” Say’ri says, glancing at her. “I had been meaning to ask you. I know she spends a lot of time with you playing...er, what are they? Strategy games?”

“Mmhm,” Nah doesn’t look up.

“We had been thinking about maybe getting her something as a gift. The holidays are coming up, and, well, to be honest I don’t know the first thing about video games.”

“Well, you’d probably want to get her a playstation,” Morgan says, brushing crumbs from his mouth.

Nah shakes her head. “She likes strategy games, so a PC is the way to go.”

“Yeah, but that takes all the fussing with settings and getting it set up. If she’s just starting out, a console would be better, y’know?”

“Name three good strategy games for the playstation.”

Morgan sighs and rubs his temples. “Just get her a DS. She can play it on the train or whatever.”

“Oh, that’s smart,” Nah agrees. “Get her a DS.”

“Uh...huh.” Say’ri makes a small note on her phone. “Right. I’ll ask Cynthia about it.”

Nah steals the rest of Morgan’s donut in a single wide-mouthed bite.

Lucina emerges from the hallway into the waiting area and pulls her windbreaker around herself tightly. She stops at the refreshments station and pours herself a cup of hot water before grabbing a bag of tea from the stand. All conversation hushes as she approaches, shaking hands steadied by her paper cup.

“Are you okay, honey?” Robin asks, standing up and helping guide Lucina to a seat. In the harsh morning light, it’s clear how exhausted Lucina is; bags under her red-rimmed eyes, lips dry and cracked, movements sluggish and imprecise. She nods.

“Yeah.”

“How’s she doing?” Chrom asks.

“Okay, I think,” Lucina sloshes her tea nervously, trying to stir is with minimal effort. “She stopped crying a few minutes ago, so now she just wants to rest.”

“She’s had a long night,” Say’ri nods. “She deserves the sleep.”

“Yeah.” Lucina sighs.

There’s a tense, awkward silence hanging like a malaise over the group, each lost in private, exhausted thoughts. Morgan stretches and leans against Nah, closing his eyes. Kjelle looks up from her textbook and gives a Cynthia a comforting pat as she adjusts her back in her seat.

Lucina stares into the steam of her cup, hands shaking. She takes a deep, ragged breath.

“It’s okay if you need to cry, honey,” Robin says softly, resting her hand on Lucina’s. “It’s been a hard night for you, too.”

Lucina purses her lips and nods. Her breathing is slow and heavy, like any inhale too quick will smash her fortitude and leave her sobbing on the hospital floor. She looks up with pleading eyes, asking anyone who returns her gaze. “She’s...she’s going to be okay, right?”

Say’ri nods slightly. “The doctors are very hopeful.”

“Good,” Lucina’s voice cracks. “Good.”

 

-

 

“They want to keep you here for observation for a least a week,” Sumia explains, opening the curtains and letting bright light into Severa’s hospital room. Severa winces and lifts a hand to block the light. “Maybe more, depending on how you respond to the treatment.”

“And what exactly...is that treatment?” Severa asks. Her voice feels stronger, less raspy and painful.

“They’re going to be administering medication intravenously,” Sumia explains, tidying up Severa’s bedside table. She takes some degree of comfort in the action, like tidying Severa’s room at home. It keeps her grounded, makes her less nervous. But it also drives Severa crazy.

“Can you stop...fussing with stuff?” Severa furrows her brow. She realizes it comes off as harsh and course-corrects. “Sorry, it’s just…” she lets out a soft laugh. “You’re making ME nervous.”

Sumia laughs, too, nervously, and Severa makes a face at her. “Of course, dear. Sorry.” She continues to straighten up the bedside table. “I brought you some books, and Nah said she’s leaving her video game for you to play,” Sumia says, pushing the stack of gifts closer. “She said to make sure you know she does want it back.”

Severa smiles and leans back in her bed. “Yeah, I thought she might say something like that.”

“Is there anything I can get you? Food, water, something to do?” Sumia bounces on her feet. “Say’ri and I need to go back to the farm and make sure everything’s okay.”

Severa nods. “I’m just tired, mostly.” She closes her eyes. “You can go, I’ll be fine.”

Sumia stops at her bedside and leans over her to kiss her forehead softly.

“Mmhm,” Severa intones sleepily. She opens her eyes and watches Sumia leave. “Uh, Sumia,” she says quietly, right before she reaches the door. “I love you.”

Sumia smiles. “I love you too.”

 

-

 

Lucina parks her car at the university train station and fusses with the tape deck, waiting for the train to arrive.

Her university is at the edge of the city, crammed between the outer edges of midtown and the fields beyond the river, where the city turns to suburbia and then to farmland stretching out for miles and miles, towards home.

Severa had been in the hospital for eleven days total, on the fifth of which Lucina’s parents made her return to school, once Severa’s outlook started improving. By the ninth day she was walking again, and the doctors let her go on the eleventh.

Lucina checks her phone.

She checks it again. The train is due to arrive any minute. She rolls down the window and peers out along the long stretch of track. Nothing.

She slumps back heavily in her seat, impatient. She checks her phone again.

Severa had sent her a few pictures, Lucina’s favorite of which is Severa in a hospital gown, eyes dark and smug, flashing a peace sign with her hand that isn’t wired to her IV. Lucina smiles.

There’s a distant rattling and Lucina practically leaps from the driver’s seat of her car and almost stumbles on the gravel of the parking lot as she sprints up to the train platform. She’s breathless as she arrives on the platform. It’s a cold day, frost coating the tracks and the concrete platform, dusting the parking lot and buildings with a thin layer of white. The forecast was calling for snow, one of these days, but the city managed to hold it off in its bubble of steam and smoke and warmth.

Lucina adjusts her jacket and bounces on her feet as the train pulls up to the station.

The doors open and people spill out onto the platform, commuters and visitors and everything in between. Lucina stands up on her tiptoes, scanning the crowd of hats and beanies for that distinctive shade of lovely red.

“Hey,” comes a voice from behind her.

Lucina turns, and a soft smile graces her face. “Hey.”

“Missed you.”

“You look…” Lucina bites back a laugh. “Different.”

“It looks stupid, doesn’t it,” Severa says, rubbing her hand on her scalp. “I know it looks stupid.”

“No, it’s cute!” Lucina throws her arms around Severa and tugs her into a tight embrace, threading her hands between Severa and her backpack. “It really fits you.”

Severa growls into Lucina’s neck. “It looks stupid. I’m stupid.”

“I promise,” Lucina says, brushing her lips against Severa’s cheek and holding her at arm’s length. “It’s lovely. You’re lovely.” She kisses Severa’s lips. “I’ve never seen someone so beautiful.”

Severa ruffles her short, feathery hair. Her fringe remained the same as it always had been, but she had lopped off the long, heavy fall of hair in the back, leaving it short and fluffy. She blushes and tangles her fingers through, leaving it stylishly disheveled.

“So...what happened?” Lucina asks, taking Severa’s hand and walking down the platform steps. “Just wanted it shorter?”

“I was mad and started chopping it off with scissors,” Severa says with some degree of embarrassment. “I was really upset about something stupid, I think.”

“Not smoking is really taking a toll on you, huh.”

Severa scowls. “It fucking sucks.” She picks at her nails, chipping the painted black. “I’m just so fucking mad all the time.”

“And how does that change anything?” Lucina teases, leaning forward to intercept Severa’s protests with a kiss.

Severa scowls at her but melts into her embrace, putting up with the gentle teasing. She grumbles softly.

Lucina parts as she walks around her car to slide into the driver’s seat.

“Say’ri got me some nicotine patches but it’s not the same,” Severa groans, sitting in the passenger seat. She rolls up her sleeve to reveal at least four of them stuck to her arm between the patchwork scars and fresh needlemarks.

“Oof,” Lucina says, noncommittally. She’s made little effort to hide that she’s happy Severa’s quitting. If nothing else, her car will stop smelling like menthol all the time. She slots the key into the ignition and the engine rolls over.

“So, what’s the report?” she asks, backing out of her parking spot. Severa leans against the window and watches stray snowflakes flutter against the glass and turn to water.

“Well, no more smoking,” Severa scowls. “No more drugs at all. I have my prescriptions and I got a month of painkillers, but Sumia’s keeping them locked in the cabinet.”

“Mm,” Lucina says, not hiding her satisfaction. “That’s going to be hard.”

“I tried arguing that quitting cold turkey is going to fucking kill me, but the doctors said I have to stop as soon as possible. So instead I’m just gonna be fucking miserable for the next few months.”

“Have you tried replacing smoking with a better habit? I know...oh, what’s his name. One of my dad’s friends started chewing gum when he was quitting.”

“I’m still in the ‘trying not to kill myself’ phase,” Severa slumps against the dash and rests her face in her folded arms. “No drinking, no pills. Morgan had started selling me weed, but that’s out too.”

“Right, so no more drugs,” Lucina smiles. “What about treatment? That going okay?” She turns the steering wheel idly and pulls down a back road between a tall building and a parking garage.

“Yeah,” Severa picks at her wrist brace. “I need to go back for blood tests and injections every two weeks.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.” Severa scowls. “I hate needles.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, though.”

“Mm,” Severa grumbles. “I have to carry around an inhaler, too, in case I start coughing. It’s some medication, I guess.” She produces a small plastic inhaler from her purse to demonstrate.

“You really are a mess, huh,” Lucina smiles at her softly as they pull up to a stoplight.

“Yeah. Honestly, I don’t know why you fucking bother.”

“Hey, hey now,” Lucina chides her. “Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m just pissed,” Severa curls her hands into fists. “I...I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Lucina rests her hand on Severa’s balled fist and offers a slight squeeze. “Is there anything you wanted to do this weekend? That new shopping mall downtown just opened up, if you’d want to check it out.”

“Mm,” Severa shrugs.

“Gosh, you must really be feeling down if you don’t want to go shopping,” Lucina teases. “How about I take you out somewhere nice for dinner? You can get whatever you want.”

Severa makes a small noncommittal noise.

Lucina purses her lips. “Want to sit in my dorm in our PJs and watch movies?”

Severa nods.

 

-

 

“Kjelle’s probably at the gym,” Lucina says, taking Severa’s backpack and tossing it on her bed. “She won’t be back for a few hours if you wanted to shower off or something.”

Lucina’s dorm room is, from what Severa can tell, exemplary of any student housing. Bare walls plastered with posters and Lucina’s ever-present calendar, desks cluttered with books and school supplies. A textbook lies open next to a laptop, and beside them a mug of lukewarm coffee. It’s funny how much Lucina can turn any space into her own little den, her own piles of schoolwork and haphazardly draped jackets and laundry piled into the corner. Kjelle’s half of the room is neater, and just about what Severa had expected; workout clothes draped over the bed’s headboard, weights tucked under the bed, a tidy desk all neat and organized. The window set into the far wall looks out on the quad, on stretches of faded green now turning a greyish white with frost.

Severa stretches. “Yeah, a shower might be good.”

Lucina tries to pick up and organize as best she can as Severa sheds her jacket and pants and makes her way to the bathroom Lucina and Kjelle share. Lucina picks up Severa's clothes and neatly folds them on the bed.

Severa brought a change of clothes and a set of pajamas in her bag, mixed in with her books and her handheld game. Lucina plucks out Severa's toiletries and pushes open the door to the bathroom.

"Need this shampoo, or are you just rinsing off?"

"Just rinsing off," Severa says, to the sound of water sloshing around in the bottom of the shower.

"Was the ride out okay?" Lucina leans against the sink and folds her arms over her chest. Steam billows out from the seams of the glass shower screen, warped and opaque to obscure the occupant within. Lucina can still the general shape of her, her pale skin and slender limbs and the head of fiery, short hair.

"Yeah," Severa says, brushing her hands through her hair.

"It's about two hours, right?"

"A little less, depending on if the train is late."

"Bet it gave you a lot of time to work on Nah's game."

Severa laughed. "Yeah. I mostly looked out the window though."

"Mmhm, the drive is really pretty." Lucina means it - the meandering highway takes her through fields and over hills that sparkle like gold in the afternoon sun, and in the summer it's hills of green and miles and miles of clear blue sky. This time of year, though, the fields are drenched brown and muddy and the trees are turned to skeleton tangles of wispy, frosted limbs.

Lucina watches the mirror fog up with steam and traces a heart against it, smiling at her handiwork. "Hey, are you hungry? Do you want any snacks or anything?"

"Yeah, that might be good," Severa says noncommittally. Lucina stares at her silhouette.

 

-

 

Severa and Lucina sit crosslegged on the bed, leaning against a backrest of piled pillows, a blanket draped over their legs. Lucina has a textbook open in her lap, and Severa has both hands wrapped around a warm mug of instant hot cocoa powder mixed with microwaved water. It’s not exactly gourmet, but Severa sips it gratefully. Her hair is still damp from the shower, her cheeks flushed and warm, and snow speckles the outside of the dorm window. She sips her cocoa and offers a warm smile to Lucina.

“Hm?” Lucina looks up from her book. “Do you need something?”

“No, just…” Severa purses her lips. “This is really nice.” Her smile droops. “I don’t know. Sorry, I’m dumb.”

Lucina shuts her textbook. “No, you’re not dumb.” She gestures at the game that’s open in Severa’s lap. “What are you playing?”

“Huh?” Severa sets her cocoa down. “It’s some game Nah lent me. I’m not very good at it yet, but it’s kinda fun.” She leans closer to Lucina, shoulder to shoulder, gathering the blankets closer around them. “See, you control all these little squares. You like, build bases and stuff to defend.”

Lucina squints at it. “So you’re the little blue ones.”

“Yeah, and the, uh. The red ones are…” Severa’s face flushes. “No, it’s stupid. You don’t care.”

“No, it looks neat!” Lucina protests, wrapping her arm around Severa’s lower back. “I really like the art style.”

“Yeah,” Severa says quietly. Her thumbs tap idly.

“It’s a lotta numbers and stuff.”

“Yeah.”

It’s quiet, for awhile. Lucina looks out the window. The snow seems to be stopping, for now, with streaks of sunlight bursting through the cloud layer. Sunset would be soon, but for now orange dotted the grey skyline like fire against ash.

“I like it,” Severa says quietly. “I like thinking about all the numbers and options and plans.” She nudges Lucina. “Look, see, if I put my archers here, they can get these guys but they can’t get me back.”

Lucina smiles. “Nice. Kick their asses.”

“Nah showed it to me,” Severa continues. “I just...I like it. I don’t know. It’s like…” she purses her lips. “I’m not stupid. Just because school is hard for me, and I guess…” she blinks. “I guess it’s nice to feel smart now and then. To feel like I’m outsmarting the other little pieces, pulling together the puzzle, y’know? It’s about numbers and positioning and risk.” She smiles sheepishly. “I know it sounds pretty dumb when I talk about it like that, doesn’t it?”

Lucina laughs. “No, not at all! Gosh, god knows I can’t play that sort of thing.” She glances at the screen. “I see that many numbers pop up and my brain starts to jumble them all up and I can’t read a damn line of it.” She opens her book. “Hell, I couldn’t even make it through a page of this without my meds.”

Severa shrug and runs her hand through her short hair.

Lucina really does think its cute, and she kisses the top of Severa’s head, and then her ear, and then her lips.

Severa returns the gesture, reaching up to cup Lucina’s cheek and press their lips together.

She pulls back, still staring at Lucina’s soft lips.

“Would you want to go for a walk or something?” she asks quietly, almost shyly. She wiggles her legs under the blanket. “I’ve been cooped up in the hospital, so maybe some fresh air might be good.”

“Did you bring a coat?” Lucina asks, glancing out the window.

Severa shakes her head.

“Well, you can always borrow one of mine,” Lucina smiles, kissing the top of Severa’s head.

 

-

 

Lucina’s taller than Severa by nearly a foot, and her jackets reflect that - Severa’s drapes loosely from her shoulders, the sleeves extending past her gloved hands, bunching up against her wrist brace. Lucina wraps a scarf around her, too, a spare from under her bed, bundling Severa up tight until she’s warm enough to ward off the cold chill.

Severa wraps her hand around Lucina’s and squeezes tight.

The sun is sinking behind the buildings now, casting a shadow over the campus. On the horizon, buildings jut into the sky like dark, crooked teeth. Lucina pulls her scarf down to plant a kiss on Severa’s chilly cheek.

“You okay?”

“Hm? Yeah,” Severa says, dragging her boots on the sidewalk.

“I just wanted to make sure...y’know. You’re doing okay.”

“Yeah, I just...wanted to get out a bit,” Severa says, muffled into her scarf. “I wasn’t really allowed up until I was discharged, and then mom and - “ She stops herself. “Say’ri wouldn’t let me tend to the horses or go for walks or anything, just rest, rest, rest.” She kicks a rock. “I just wanted to stretch my legs a bit, you know.”

“You’re cute,” Lucina nudges her ribs gently.

“What?”

“Calling Say’ri that.”

“Yeah,” Severa grumbles. “I just misspoke. I’m not saying anything.”

Lucina purses her lips.

Severa yanks her hand out of Lucina’s and sticks it in her pockets. “Can you not?”

“Not what?” Lucina frowns.

“Make fun of me for stuff like that.”

“Sorry,” Lucina says, sticking her hands in her own pockets. She frowns as Severa fusses with her handbag.

“Severa.”

“Mm?” Severa looks up, cigarette dangling from her lips.

Lucina furrows her brow and reaches out to snatch it from Severa’s mouth.

“What the hell, Lucina?!” Severa watches the cigarette sadly bounce off the rim of a trashcan and fall inside. She follows it, swiping her gloves against the top of the bin.

Lucina snatches Severa’s bag from her shoulder, prompting Severa to lash out and swipe her arms. “H-hey! Give that back!”

Lucina scowls and pulls a pack of cigarettes from Severa’s bag, holding it up above her head, just out of reach of Severa’s scrabbling hands.

“Severa, you said you were quitting!”

“I just wanted one!” Severa scowls, realizing it’s a futile effort.

Lucina tosses the entire pack in the trash and watches Severa clutch the rim sadly, watching it disappear into a mess of plastic bottles and food wrappers.

“You are NOT considering reaching in for it.”

Severa lashes a leg out and connects with the trashcan, making the metal sides ring out. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

“Because you have to stop!” Lucina cries. “You said you’d quit!”

“Why can’t you just let me make my own mistakes?!” Severa snaps. “You always do this! You-” Her breath hitches and she coughs, lurching over and grasping the trashcan.

“S-Severa?” Lucina steps forward and takes her elbow to steady her.

“I’m o-okay,” Severa coughs, fumbling in her purse for her inhaler. She pressed the plastic to her lips and inhales.

Lucina slips her arm around Severa’s back and helps support her as they walk to a bench. Lucina sets her down gently and sits at her side, wrapping her arm around the small of Severa’s back and tugging her close.

“I’m okay,” Severa says, though her hands still shake, clutching her inhaler.

“Sev…” Lucina takes the inhaler and puts it back into Severa’s bag before taking Severa’s hands in her own and pressing her thumbs to Severa’s shuddering palms. “It’s okay, Sev. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” Severa mutters, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “I’m s-sorry,” she tucks her head shamefully and buries herself in the crook of Lucina’s neck. “I’m sorry, L-Lucina, I didn’t…”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Lucina rubs her back. “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”

“I’m so stupid,” she says softly.

Lucina kisses the top of her head. “Where did you even get cigarettes?”

“The train station, after S-Sumia dropped me off,” Severa says. “I didn’t even get to have one…”

“Good,” Lucina kisses her again. “How does dinner sound?”

 

-

 

The sun’s set entirely behind the skyline by the time Lucina and Severa finish eating. Lucina shows her one of her and Kjelle’s favorite spots, a rickety food truck behind the liberal arts building that serves a variety of sandwiches slathered with all sorts of toppings. Severa opts for a chicken sandwich smothered with peppers, onions and cheese, and unwraps the foil slowly, taking each bite with care.

Lucina gets a meatball sub and a soda for them to split, and they sit on a pair of deck chairs tucked into a garden behind the science building.

They talk, and laugh, and Severa listens to Lucina tell stories about her classes, about school events, fencing, the life that Lucina lives now among the brickwork and concrete walkways. Lucina’s studies are going well, or, as well as they could be - she’s skating by her required mathematics classes, but with her new medication she’s able to focus well enough to dedicate time to the studies she enjoys, between sports and hanging out with Kjelle and Cynthia.

Severa doesn’t talk much, mostly nodding along, smiling and laughing and offering “oh, jeez, that sucks” as prompted.

Lucina crumples up her sandwich wrapper. “So anyway, we decided that he wasn’t invited anymore.”

“Well, yeah, cleaning vomit off of _anyone’s_ shoes would do that, I think.”

Lucina laughs and stands up, offering her hand to Severa. “Hey, come here, I want to show you something.”

Severa takes her hand, exhaling a frosty breath into the cool night air. Lucina leads her past the campus buildings lit with fluorescent lamps, the walkways lined with trash-bins and benches, past the science lab and the gym, out past the sports fields and towards the train tracks.

“Kjelle and I found it on a run one day,” Lucina recounts, leading Severa by the hand. “Well, she did.” She laughs. “I was too busy dying and dumping gatorade down the front of my shirt.” She stops at the edge of a short brick wall and hauls herself up onto it before offering a hand down to help Severa up.

Severa climbs up with assistance, the effort straining her chest, and she coughs.

“It’s okay, we’re almost there,” Lucina assures her, helping her climb down the other side of the wall.

She guides Severa farther from campus, out towards the grass fields beyond the train tracks. “The river is down this way, if you go a little farther, so they didn’t build much stuff here.” She points back at campus, and the city skyline. “You can still see the city, but here it’s just so open and nice.”

A train blazes past at the edge of the field, rattling in its metal tracks and flashing by in a burst of light. They can feel the cold wind ruffle their hair.

Lucina laughs and reaches out a hand to comb through Severa’s now-tousled hair.

“I like this,” Severa says, walking out farther into the grass. “It’s so quiet.”

“Yeah,” Lucina exhales, and her breath clouds in the night air. Ahead, as promised, they can see groves of trees descending towards the river, but the city and university are behind them, like a backdrop of glowing silhouettes against the night sky. “This is the only place on campus you can see the stars.”

Severa cranes her neck back and stares up at the black sky and the lights twinkling above. “Yeah,” she breathes, inaudibly, so soft her breath doesn’t fog.

“I dunno,” Lucina walks up behind her and threads her arms around Severa’s stomach. I thought you might like it.” She plants a kiss on Severa’s forehead.

“Mm,” Severa agrees, leaning back into her embrace.

They stand like that, twined together, staring up at the stars.

“I’m...sorry,” Severa says at last.

“Hm? For what?”

“For...how I’ve been acting,” Severa turns her eyes down. “I know I’ve been...well, pretty shitty,” she laughs half-heartedly. “I feel like I’ve been just awful to everyone around me.”

Lucina slips her jacket from her shoulders and spreads it out on the cold ground, beckoning for Severa to sit. She does, and Lucina sits at her side.

“It was like...it didn’t feel real, you know? When I thought I was going to die.” Severa picks at the dead grass that lays bent and twisted by Lucina’s makeshift blanket. “I felt like...nothing mattered. The world was so mean to me. Everyone was so mean to me.” She blinks. “And...and I thought that maybe...y’know...maybe I wasn’t worth anything.” She curls her hand around a fistful of cold earth. “And if I wasn’t, then nobody else was either.”

She closes her eyes. “Did you know I grew up here? My mom and I had an apartment on the other side of the city, but…” she sighs. “I never really knew my dad, but he would come around sometimes.”

Lucina wraps her arm around Severa and pulls her closer.

Severa’s shoulders shake. “I’ve...I’ve been kicked around my whole life, you know? First my dad, and then other kids, and the orphanage, and…” she takes a deep, shuddering breath. “It was easier knowing it’d end. That it would all stop one day.”

She leans into Lucina and presses herself into the crook of her arm. “I was never afraid of it hurting, because...because everything hurt.”

Lucina stares at the stars, waiting for Severa’s soft shuddering to still and the words to continue.

“My therapist said I should try and find an, ugh, what’s it. A ‘happy place’, something to think about when I could feel myself spiraling.” She presses her face to her knees. “I used to think of my mom a lot. Stuff we would do, trips we’d take. But...but I don’t want that to be the only happiness in my life.”

She lifts a hand and wipes tears from her face. “I want things like this to be happy.” She sobs. “Being with you, looking at the stars. Eating chips in bed and playing that stupid video game.” She curls her hand into a fist. “I want to be able to call Say’ri and Sumia mom without it hurting.”

She shakes her head and wipes her eyes.

“I never...I never thought about the future, because I never thought it’d have one.” She burrows her face into her knees. “And...it’s scary.” She takes a ragged inhale. “It’s so scary, Lucina.”

“I know,” Lucina says softly, pulling Severa tighter. “But you’re not alone,” she whispers. “We’re all here for you. Remember what I said? Every step of the way.” She kisses Severa’s ear, her eyelashes, her tear-stained cheeks. She kisses Severa’s lips. “I promise, Severa. I know it’s hard, and I know it’s scary. But we all love you so much. I...I love you so much.”

Severa curls her arms around Lucina and pulls her into a tight embrace, returning her soft lips before curling into her and laying on her chest, staring up at the stars.

“I love you, Lucina,” Severa says into her chest. “I love you so much. Th...thank you.”

“Love you too,” Lucina murmurs into Severa’s short, tousled hair.

Severa sighs deeply, contentedly. A train rattles by at the end of the field, and the cold night breeze caresses her flushed cheeks. It really is remarkable how many stars they can see, almost as many as they could back at the Fujiwara farm. Severa watches the twinkling lights.

“That one’s Sirius,” she says, pointing languidly. “That white one, there. It’s part of Canis Major.”

Lucina squints. “That’s, uh, the dog one?”

Severa nods.

“What about that one?”

“The tiny red one?”

“Yeah, what’s that one?”

“That’s Mars, Lucina.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you like my work, you can commission me! Just shoot me a DM at lucisevofficial.tumblr.com or an email at cowboysneep@gmail.com to discuss!


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